Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said Monday that his Fatah party and the ruling Hamas party have agreed to form a coalition government in a bid to ease crippling international sanctions.
The two sides have been negotiating for months to form such a coalition. "The continuous efforts to form a national unity government have ended successfully with the announcement of a political program for this government," Abbas said in a statement to Palestinian television and the Palestinians' official WAFA news agency.
"Efforts in the next few days will continue to complete the formation of the national unity government," the statement said.
He said that "we are so pleased to tell Palestinian people that we formulated the political program of the national unity government on the basis of the National Reconciliation Document."
Abbas said that in the coming days "we will start to form the new government, and we call on our people to support these efforts."
