Five States to Ensure Fair Palestinian Elections

Five States to Ensure Fair Palestinian Elections
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Five States to Ensure Fair Palestinian Elections

Five States to Ensure Fair Palestinian Elections

Political sources based in Ramallah confirmed that rival Palestinian parties are on track to reconciliation thanks to the intervention of five countries that will guarantee fair elections both in Gaza and the West Bank.

Fatah and Hamas, the two main rival parties, had expressed doubts about the integrity of the elections. Hamas accused the Palestinian Authority of not maintaining integrity in the West Bank, and Fatah accused Hamas of preventing fair elections in Gaza.

This led to Qatar, Turkey, and Russia pledging to ensure the integrity of elections in Gaza, and Egypt and Jordan guaranteeing fair elections in the West Bank.

Hamas has backed down from its rejection of the PA’s proposal for holding elections for the Palestinian National Council, parliament and the presidency consecutively, within a period of six months at most.

Hamas Political Bureau Chief Ismail Haniyeh has expressed the movement’s readiness to end internal division and achieve reconciliation in a letter to PA President Mahmoud Abbas.

According to a presidential statement on Saturday, Secretary-General of the Central Committee of Fatah Movement Jibril Rajoub conveyed the letter to Abbas who welcomed what came in it on ending division, building partnership, and attaining national unity.

Abbas, for his part, told Hamas that he is "committed" to holding elections in a letter sent to Haniyeh.

In a statement issued through the movement's media advisor, Taher Al-Nunu, Haniyeh said that the letter provides grounds for building a partnership, ending the Palestinian division, and creating unity among the people and leadership through a fair and transparent democratic process.

“Abbas reiterated his commitment to achieving partnership and unity as a strategic goal, and called for national dialogue to accomplish this goal,” said the Hamas leader.

“He will work on creating a positive environment to enforce all understandings and agreements, including outcomes of the Palestinian factions' secretaries-general conference held last September,” he added.



Cyprus Says Syria Will Take Back Citizens Trying to Reach the Mediterranean Island by Boat

Migrants stand behind a fence inside a refugee camp in Kokkinotrimithia outside of capital Nicosia, Cyprus, on Friday, Feb. 5, 2021. (AP)
Migrants stand behind a fence inside a refugee camp in Kokkinotrimithia outside of capital Nicosia, Cyprus, on Friday, Feb. 5, 2021. (AP)
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Cyprus Says Syria Will Take Back Citizens Trying to Reach the Mediterranean Island by Boat

Migrants stand behind a fence inside a refugee camp in Kokkinotrimithia outside of capital Nicosia, Cyprus, on Friday, Feb. 5, 2021. (AP)
Migrants stand behind a fence inside a refugee camp in Kokkinotrimithia outside of capital Nicosia, Cyprus, on Friday, Feb. 5, 2021. (AP)

Syria has agreed to take back any of its citizens intercepted trying to reach Cyprus by boat, the Mediterranean island nation's deputy minister for migration said Monday.

Nicholas Ioannides says two inflatable boats, each carrying 30 Syrians, were already turned back in recent days in line with a bilateral search and rescue agreement that Cyprus and Syria now have in place.

Officials didn't share further details about the agreement.

Cypriot navy and police patrol boats intercepted the two vessels on May 9th and 10th after they put out a call for help. They were outside Cypriot territorial waters but within the island's search and rescue area of responsibility, a government statement said. They were subsequently escorted back to a port in the Syrian city of Tartus.

Ioannides told private TV station Antenna there’s been an uptick of boatloads of migrants trying to reach Cyprus from Syria, unlike in recent years when vessels would primarily depart from Lebanon. Cyprus and Lebanon have a long-standing agreement to send back migrants.

He said Cypriot authorities and their Syrian counterparts are trying to fight back against human traffickers who are supplying an underground market for laborers.

According to Ioannides, traffickers apparently cut deals with local employers to bring in Syrian laborers who pick up work right away, despite laws that prevent asylum-seekers from working before the completion of a nine-month residency period.

“The message we’re sending is that the Cyprus Republic won’t tolerate the abuse of the asylum system from people who aren’t eligible for either asylum or international protection and just come here only to work,” Ioannides said.

The bilateral agreement is compounded by the Cypriot government’s decision last week not to automatically grant asylum to Syrian migrants, but to examine their applications individually on merit and according to international and European laws.

From a total of 19,000 pending asylum applications, 13,000 have been filed by Syrian nationals, according to figures quoted by Ioannides.

Since Assad was toppled in December last year and a new transitional government took power, some 2,300 Syrians have either dropped their asylum claims or rescinded their international protection status, while 2,100 have already departed Cyprus for Syria.

Both the United Nations refugee agency and Europe’s top human rights body have urged the Cyprus government to stop pushing back migrants trying to reach the island by boat. Cyprus strongly denies it’s committing any pushbacks according to its definition.