Algerian president leads meeting between Abbas and Hamas leader

July 6. (EUROPA PRESS) –

The president of Algeria, Abdelmayid Tebune, has led a meeting between the president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, and the leader of the political arm of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), Ismail Haniya, the first of its kind in the last 15 years.

According to information collected by the Algerian state news agency, APS, several representatives of the Palestinian Authority and the Islamist group were also present at the meeting, without further details having emerged for the time being.

Tebune and Abbas have also agreed on a document to name a street in the West Bank city of Ramallah after Algeria. Abbas and Haniya have traveled to the country to participate in the celebrations of the 60th anniversary of the independence of Algeria.

The 2006 elections and the victory of Hamas at the polls caused the international community to cut off its aid to the Palestinian authorities, which led both factions to clashes that ended with the administrative separation of the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

Since then, Al Fatá controls the West Bank –despite not having won the elections– and Hamas is in charge of the Gaza Strip, without elections having been held since then. In fact, the Islamist group does not recognize the authority of Abbas, whose mandate expired without his being succeeded as head of the Palestinian Authority.