Rival Palestinian factions Fatah and Hamas signed Sunday a Yemeni-sponsored reconciliation deal vowing to revive direct talks after months of hostilities, but differences remained over the future of the Gaza Strip. The two factions reconvened in Sana'a earlier in the day after the talks, launched last week by Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, came close to collapse several times. “We, the representatives of Fatah and Hamas, agree to the Yemeni initiative as a framework to resume dialogue between the two movements to return the Palestinian situation to what it was before the Gaza incidents,” a declaration issued after the meeting said. The Sana'a declaration, signed by top Hamas negotiator Moussa Abu Marzouk and senior Fatah official Azzam Al-Ahmed, also affirmed the “unity of the Palestinian people, territory and authority.” The Yemeni initiative called for the situation in the Gaza Strip to return to the way it was before Hamas seized the area in June after routing Fatah forces loyal to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Fatah had said it would agree to direct reconciliation talks with Hamas only if Hamas first agreed to relinquish its hold on Gaza, home to 1.5 million Palestinians. A Hamas official said Saturday the group asked that the same condition should apply to the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority has dismissed a Hamas-led government and arrested some Hamas supporters. Differences over that key clause remained, but Ahmed said he was looking forward to Yemen setting a date for new talks to begin that would hammer out the details of implementation. “We look towards implementing the Yemeni initiative and fostering Palestinian national unity,” he told reporters. Saleh has been pressing the Palestinians to begin direct talks in early April and said Yemen would ask the Arab Summit in Damascus on March 29-30 to endorse the initiative as a joint Arab plan. The Yemeni plan, which calls for a return to the framework agreement laid in Makkah, also envisages new Palestinian elections, the creation of another unity government and the reform of Palestinian security forces along national rather than factional lines. “We regard the signing today of the Sana'a Declaration as a new beginning and the start of a new stage,” Abu Marzouk said. __
