PLO to mull militant groups joining - Islamic Jihad
Reuters
Date: 03-27-05
By Nidal al-Mughrabi
GAZA (Reuters) - The Palestine Liberation Organisation may let two Islamic militant groups join its ranks for the first time, a militant leader said on Monday.
Both Islamic Jihad and Hamas have long objected to joining the mainstream PLO, opposing its peace moves with Israel, but have recently softened their stance and agreed to a temporary halt to attacks against the Jewish state.
The PLO, the main governing body of the Palestinian people, was founded by the late Yasser Arafat in the early 1960s and has sought to achieve Palestinian statehood in territories captured by Israel.
In a meeting late on Sunday, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas agreed to Islamic Jihad members taking part in a meeting of the PLO executive this week to help cement the March 17 truce, Islamic Jihad leader Mohammed al-Hindi said.
Al Hindi said both his group and Hamas would attend the PLO session "to discuss a basis on which the PLO should be rebuilt" and said the PLO would consider a bid to let them join the organisation.
Abbas, a moderate elected in January to succeed Arafat, told reporters after the Gaza meeting that he was seeking to further "national unity and calm" with the militants.
"It is necessary to follow up these issues with them (militants) so that we can push forward calm and the political process," or peace talks with Israel, Abbas said.
Hamas, whose prominent role in a 4-1/2-year uprising against Israel has enhanced its popularity, has announced plans to run in a parliamentary poll in July after boycotting the first such elections in 1996.
Islamic Jihad has not yet decided whether to stand.
Israel has demanded that Abbas be tougher with the militants and disarm them, particularly Hamas and Islamic Jihad whose members have killed more than 400 Israelis in suicide bomb attacks in the past five years.
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