GAZA, Dec. 12 (Xinhuanet) -- The mainstream Fatah movement said Sunday that they rejected a joint call by the Islamic resistance movement Hamas and Islamic Jihad to form a unified leadership afterthe death of late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

    Abdallah Ifranji, Fatah's central committee member, told reporters that Fatah rejected the call to form a unified national Palestinian leadership for the Palestinian people.

    "Forming a unified leadership means canceling Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), the sole and legitimate representative of the Palestinian people," said Ifranji, who is also the Palestinian Ambassador to Germany.

    He said forming a national leadership and canceling the PLO meant "abandoning the official representation of millions of Palestinians living in diaspora and counting on the PLO."

    Hamas and Islamic Jihad, two movements founded in the Palestinian territories in the late 1980s, refused to join the PLO executive committee.

    Right after Arafat died at a French military hospital on Nov. 11, Hamas and Islamic Jihad called to form a unified national leadership to include all Palestinian factions and powers.

    Sami Abu Zuhri, a Hamas spokesman in Gaza, said forming a unified leadership didn't mean canceling the PLO or neglecting it, instead, the unified leadership would be a reference to the Palestinian National Authority (PNA).

    "This leadership would participate in the decision making and will be following up the performance of the authority for the common interests of the Palestinian people such as unity and resistance against the occupation," he said. Enditem