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Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas speaks Photo: REUTERS/Mohamad Dabbouss

Abbas thanks Ahmadinejad for Iran's support

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas met Wednesday with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on the sidelines of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation summit.
This was the second meeting between the two in the past year. In September last year, Abbas met with the Iranian president in Tehran during a summit of the 120-nation Non-Aligned Movement.
Abbas said after the Cairo meeting that he thanked Ahmadinejad for Iran's vote in favor of the UN upgrading the Palestinians' status to non-member observer state.
During the meeting, which was attended by Chief PLO negotiator Saeb Erekat, Abbas spokesman Nabil Abu Rudaineh and PA Foreign Minister Riad Malki, the two leaders discussed the PA's financial crisis and efforts to achieve reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas, according to a statement published by Abbas's office.
It was not clear, however, whether Abbas had asked for Iranian funding to help solve the financial crisis.
Iran had long been providing Abbas's rivals in Hamas with financial and military aid. But relations between Iran and Hamas have deteriorated since the beginning of the current crisis in Syria.
Hamas's refusal to support Syrian President Bashar Assad, Tehran's major ally in the region, has also angered the Iranians.
Addressing the conference in Cairo, Abbas called on the Islamic countries to help the PA overcome its financial crisis.
He also called on these countries to invest in various projects in east Jerusalem and accused Israel of waging a "fierce and brutal" campaign against the city and the Al-Aqsa Mosque."Over the past four-and-a-half decades, the machine of Judaization and elimination of the city's Arab, Islamic and Christian character has not stopped in accordance with a systematic and programmed policy aimed at isolating Jerusalem from its surroundings," Abbas said in his speech.
Abbas said that he was doing his utmost to end the rivalry between Hamas and Fatah, saying the best way to end the dispute was by holding new elections in the Palestinian territories.
Abbas also reiterated his opposition to visits to the Gaza Strip by world leaders "as if there were an independent entity in the Gaza Strip."
The PA leadership recently condemned the Malaysian prime minister for visiting the Gaza Strip and holding talks with Hamas leaders, saying such a move "harms the oneness of Palestinian representation."

JPost.com