PLO’s national council’s meetings kick off in Beirut

By Wasim Saifuldin

BEIRUT, Lebanon

The meetings of the Preparatory Committee of the Palestinian National Council (PNC) have been launched in the Lebanese capital with wide participation of representatives from all Palestinian factions, including Hamas and Islamic Jihad groups.

The two-day meetings are currently held in the Palestinian embassy in Beirut and are attended by the head of the PNC Salim Zanoun and the prominent member of the PLO’s Executive Committee Farouk Kaddoumi.

Zanoun had opened the first round of meetings by confirming on the significance of the role of the Preparatory Committee, and then he recited a letter sent from the Lebanon’s Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, in which he expressed his hope for the meetings to be successful with a view to chart a roadmap for the Palestinian national unity.

For his part, the Hamas' representative in Lebanon Ali Baraka told Anadolu Agency that his group “is taking part in these meetings with an aim to strengthening the Palestinian national unity and to implement the reconciliation conventions earlier signed in Cairo, Doha and Gaza-based Shati refugee camp."

“We hope that these meetings succeed to rearrange the Palestinian internal situation and to rebuild the PLO on democratic levels,” he added.

The last two sessions of the PNC -- which functions as a parliament for the PLO -- were held in the Gaza Strip and Ramallah in 1996 and 2009, respectively.

PNC's executive board members consist from several Palestinian groups except Hamas and the Islamic Jihad Organization.