AFP: The emergency Palestinian government set up by president Mahmud Abbas after Hamas took control of Gaza is anti-democratic, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Mehdi Mostafavi said on Monday. TEHRAN, June 18, 2007 (AFP) – The emergency Palestinian government set up by president Mahmud Abbas after Hamas took control of Gaza is anti-democratic, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Mehdi Mostafavi said on Monday.
“The creation of a Palestinian emergency government is against democracy and accentuates political tensions in occupied Palestine,” Mostafavi was quoted as saying by the Mehr news agency.
Iran is a major backer of Hamas, the Islamic Resistance Movement which, like the Islamic republic, refuses to recognise Israel.
Abbas on Thursday dissolved the unity government headed by Hamas’s Ismail Haniya after the Islamists routed members of Abbas’s Fatah faction in the Gaza Strip in fierce fighting that left over 110 dead.
“Setting up another government alongside that of Ismail Haniya weakens Palestine and it’s what the Zionist regime wants,” Mostafavi said.
“Divisions in Palestinian ranks can but please supporters of the Zionist regime like the United States,” he said.
