The central committee for the Fatah ruling party will meet in Amman on Thursday to discuss internal Fatah leadership problems and the Arab and international relations of the Palestinian Authority, Palestinian sources reported on Thursday.
Along with Fatah leaders from the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Farouk Al-Qaddoumi, Tunis-based head of the political department of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) and Secretary of the Central Committee, is expected to attend the three-day meeting in the Jordanian capital.
The meeting, the first of its kind in more than 25 years, will prepare for Fatah’s upcoming sixth convention. One of the contentious issues it will consider, Committee member Hani Al-Hassan, told Palestine News Network, is the relationship between the PLO and the Palestinian Authority, particularly between the Political Department of the PLO and the PA Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Committee members will also discuss appointing a vice president for the Palestinian Authority and the Palestinian state, Al-Hassan said.
Al-Qaddoumi is expected to be elected vice president, according to some Palestinian sources. The said Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas met with him in Amman on Wednesday to discuss this options, as well as the possibility of Al-Qaddoumi’s return to Palestinian Authority areas after the intended Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, which is slated for mid-August.
Al-Qaddoumi is the only prominent Fatah leader who refused to return to Palestine after the Oslo accords was implemented.
Earlier in June, Al-Qaddoumi denied reports that he has been appointed vice president and said he does not accept that post because doing so would be an implicit recognition of Oslo accords, which he has rejected since 1993.
