Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs H E Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al-Thani while speaking with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria.
Doha, Qatar: Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs H E Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al-Thani has said that a unified leadership is essential to ensuring effective governance and advancing the interests of the Palestinian people.
“Actually, we want the Palestinian Authority to be the single agency for the Palestinians to take care of Gaza and the West Bank,” said the Prime Minister.
Speaking with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria, he said right now, there are ongoing talks between all the Palestinian factions, including Fatah and the PA, to make sure that this technocratic committee, it’s apolitical, it will take care of Gaza in this transition period, and it will be linked somehow to the Palestinian Authority. “Once the reforms are in place, the Palestinian Authority should take over the governance in Gaza and the West Bank together. We cannot separate those two units,” said the Prime Minister.
He said: “Those are one units. Those are the future Palestinian state... whatever we do, whatever we say, there are wishful thinking from some politicians, maybe in Israel, that there are different solutions other than the two-state solution... but there is no solution except the two-state solution.”
To a question about ceasefire, he said that the deal itself is not a simple deal. “It is a very complex deal. And despite the ceasefire, we had even in the previous ceasefire, which was January 25, we had a lot of violations and a lot of Palestinians being killed during that ceasefire.”
Replying to a question, he said: “When we are talking about international presence (in Gaza), international force presence, there should be a defined mandate. And we are working together with the United States in order to define the mandate of international forces.”
He said that the international forces role should be securing the Palestinians and the Israelis that both of them don’t pose a threat for each other. “When we were discussing the 20 points document that President Trump made, we made sure that the interaction between the Gazans and the rest is to be a Palestinian interface, whether it is the Palestinian police, Palestinian administration. Everything international should remain in the background as a guarantor and as safeguard for this agreement to take place,” said the Prime Minister.
“Now no one expects from an Arab force or an Islamic force to go there and to shoot on Palestinians, but the role of guaranteeing security should be taken care of by the Palestinian police, which will be formed in Gaza.”
