Special report: Hamas-led cabinet takes office

    GAZA, May 14 (Xinhua) -- The Palestinian government led by the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) on Sunday welcomed a Fatah lawmaker's statement that Fatah was ready to join the cabinet.

    Cabinet spokesman Ghazi Hamad termed the remark as an "encouraging mutual approach" between Hamas and Fatah concerning the possible establishment of a governing coalition.

    Such an approach could help end the current crisis facing the Palestinians, Hamad told the local radio "Voice of Palestine.""The government's door is still open for all factions to join,"he added.

    Hamad's remarks came shortly after Majed Abu Shamala, a Fatah lawmaker in the Palestinian Legislative Council, said that Fatah did not rule out the possibility of joining the Hamas-led government and forming a coalition.

    Abu Shamala told reporters that Fatah was ready to participate the Hamas-led cabinet, but stressed at the same time the necessity of drawing "a national accordance program" that all Palestinian factions agreed upon before any coalition move.

    Hopes for setting up a coalition government resurfaced when senior Hamas and Fatah leaders jailed in Israeli prisons reached on Thursday a joint political program dubbed the "Accord of National Concord", which endorsed an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel.

    Hamas, which calls for Israel's destruction, defeated the long dominant Fatah movement in the January legislative polls. The Islamic group has single-handedly set up a new government after failing to bring in any coalition partners.

    The Hamas-led cabinet has been facing a deep financial crisis due to aid cuts and a West-championed political isolation since Hamas refuses to recognize Israel's right to exist, renounce violence and honor previous Palestinian-Israeli agreements.

    Fatah, now led by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, espouses the two-state solution to the decades-old Palestinian-Israeli conflicts. Enditem