Hamas rejects Fayyad as unity government head - Middle East - Al Jazeera English
►http://english.aljazeera.net//news/middleeast/2011/06/20116121134512534.html
Hamas has opposed Fatah’s nomination of Salam Fayyad for the post of prime minister in a transitional Palestinian government, exposing differences over implementing a Palestinian reconciliation deal between the rival groups.
At a meeting late on Saturday, Fatah’s Central Committee, the secular movement’s highest decision-making body, named Fayyad, an internationally respected former World Bank economist, as its candidate for prime minister.
But on Sunday, two days before talks with Fatah in Egypt on cabinet staffing were due to begin, Salah al-Bardaweel, a senior Hamas official, said: “It is certain that we will not accept Fayyad, neither as a prime minister of the unity government nor as a minister in it.”
Bardaweel accused Fayyad of co-operating with Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip. He said that Fayyad, as prime minister, shared responsibility for the arrest of Hamas leaders and members in the West Bank in recent years.