Shaath says Hamas admits some oppose reconciliation

Senior Fatah official Nabil Shaath said on Monday that Hamas leaders acknowledge some officials in the movement are opposed to reconciliation with his party. Shaath, who returned from a week-long visit to the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip on Sunday, told Voice of Palestine radio that several Hamas leaders told him that some officials in Gaza do not want the deal between the parties to go ahead. Hamas says that it is Fatah who is obstructing the deal. Calling his talks with several factions in the coastal strip "positive", Shaath said he was determined to continue with the reconciliation process. The long-stalled deal, signed in May 2011, was given a boost in November when party chiefs met in Cairo and declared there were no longer any differences between them. Yet despite a number of implementation committees reporting progress last week, the parties descended into a fresh spat over an aborted Fatah trip to the strip while Shaath was on his visit. After four Fatah officials said they were barred from entering Gaza on Friday, the parties accused each other of using the row as a pretext to back out of the deal to end fighting between the divided governments. Gaza's interior ministry pointied to Shaath's visit to the enclave as evidence it does not forbid anyone from entering the territory, but Fatah officials in the West Bank insisted that Hamas aims to "to close the door to reconciliation and to prevent (Fatah officials’) access to the Gaza Strip to continue the (unity) dialogue."