GAZA, Aug. 16 (Xinhua) -- Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas announced on Wednesday that he started consultations with his Prime Minister Ismail Haneya, on forming a new national unity government.
Abbas told the state-run Palestinian satellite television that he agreed with Haneya, who is also a senior Hamas leader, to start immediately talks and consultations on forming a new Palestinian national coalition government.
The Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), which overwhelmingly won the January legislative elections, failed to form a national coalition government and had alone formed a government in late March.
However, after Israel detained six ministers in the Hamas-led government, as well as 21 lawmakers representing Hamas in the Parliament and also detaining speaker of the council Aziz Dweik, Hamas accepted forming a coalition.
Abbas said that "I held two meetings with Haneya and we discussed all the issues that serve the highest interests of our people, and I'm confident that we will resolve all our differences."
He added, "The most significant issues we had discussed is forming a national coalition government based on the document of national accordance brokered by leaders of the prisoners in Israeli prisons."
"From now and further on, we would start contacts and consultations to achieve this goal which is the hop for our people," Abbas said.
On his part, Haneya also told reporters on Wednesday that he had discussed with President Abbas a package of issues including the formation of a national unity government.
He confirmed that he agreed with Abbas on starting consultations and contacts on forming the new cabinet based on the prisoners' document of national accordance to serve our people’s interests.
"The aim is to end our people's suffering, ending the siege imposed on the Palestinian territories and releasing all the prisoners, including ministers and lawmakers from Israeli jails," said Haneya.
Haneya expressed hope that these consultations would succeed and be fruitful. Enditem
