AMMAN, February 5 (RIA Novosti) - The Fatah
organization of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will elect
a leader in March when it holds its first general conference in
19 years, an organizing committee member said on Thursday.
The decision to hold the general conference on March 21
was made in Jordan's capital of Amman on Thursday.
The organizing committee member told RIA Novosti that the
conference would be held in either Jordan or Egypt, where Abbas
has close relations. It is expected that up to 1,500 Fatah
members from the West Bank, Gaza Strip and the Palestinian
diaspora will attend.
The Fatah movement has not held a general conference for
19 years. The last general conference was held in Algeria in
1989 under the late Palestine Liberation Organization leader,
Yasser Arafat, who died in 2004, after which Abbas was
appointed Fatah leader.
Fatah's Revolutionary Council will meet in the next few
weeks in Amman "to discuss the situation on the Palestinian
arena, the situation in the Gaza Strip after recent war with
Israel, as well as possibilities for talks with its main
opponent, Hamas," the committee member said.
In 2006, the radical Islamic Hamas movement won elections
in the Gaza Strip, taking control of the enclave in June 2007
after deadly street fighting with Fatah supporters.
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