Last update - 00:00 07/12/2006
Special PLO committee to urge Abbas to call early elections
By Avi Issacharoff, Haaretz Correspondent, and News Agencies
A special panel established by the Palestine Liberation Organization Executive Committee will recommend Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas call early PA elections, panel members said Thursday.
The panel was formed to examine Abbas' options given the failure of talks on forming a PA unity government with Hamas.
"Calling early elections is the best solution in order to get out of the crisis in the talks with Hamas on a unity government," said the panel's chairman, Yasser Abed Rabbo.
Fatah faction whip Azzam al-Ahmed, himself a member of the PLO Executive Committee, said the panel presented Abbas with a number of options "of which they prefer [the option] of calling early elections."
Abed Rabbo said the panel will officially present its conclusions in the near future.
The PLO and Fatah leaderships will hold a number of consultations on the unity government talks over the weekend. The PLO Executive Committee is expected to decide on the panel's recommendations Saturday.
Abed Rabbo said Abbas will announce his decision in a speach next week.
A Hamas member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, Khalil Al-Hia, said Wednesday that the Hamas is prepared to field a candidate to run against Abbas for the PA chairmanship. Al-Hia did not say who that candidate would be.
Haniyeh in Tehran for talks with Iranian leadership
TEHRAN - Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh arrived in Tehran on Thursday for talks with Iranian leaders, including hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, state-run media reported.
Haniyeh is on his first tour abroad since his Hamas-led government took office in March.
The Palestinian prime minister will also meet with supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and former president Hashemi Rafsanjani, the official Islamic Republic News Agency reported. He will also deliver a speech to students at Tehran University during his visit.
Iran has provided the Hamas-led Palestinian government with $120 million this year, increasing its aid to the militant group and boosting its influence among Palestinians amid an international economic boycott of the Palestinian Authority.
Muslims and independence-seeking nations support the Palestinians because they have adopted the correct position towards the occupiers," Iranian First Vice President Parviz Davoudi told Haniyeh at the start of his four-day visit to Iran.
"Iran is ready to offer its valuable achievements and experiences in different fields to the Palestinian nation," the official IRNA news agency quoted Davoudi as saying.
Iran's support for the Palestinians has grown more vocal since President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad came to power in August 2005. The former Revolutionary Guardsman has called the Israeli state a "tumor" which must be "wiped off the map".
Haniyeh, whose tour was also to include Syria, thanked Iran for its support and said Palestinian resistance of Israel would continue. "The popular Palestinian government not only has not recognized the occupiers but also considers resistance the natural right of the Palestinian nation."
Haniyeh will meet Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Ahmadinejad and deliver a speech to students at Tehran University during his visit, IRNA said.
The "Quartet" of Middle East mediators - the United States, the European Union, the United Nations, and Russia - is pressing Hamas to recognize Israel, renounce violence, and accept previous agreements signed between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.