| Date: 04/02/2012 Time: 10:43:00 AM |
Palestinian National Authority has released
scores of political prisoners as part of the reconciliation with the Islamic
movement Hamas, announced a ranking PNA official on Saturday.
Dr. Mustafa Al-Barghouthi, Secretary General of the Palestinian National
Initiative, said in a statement that the "committee of freedoms" of the party
had received a list of 62 detainees who were set free.
The released detainees were chosen from among 109 prisoners held behind
bars by the PNA authorities.
This step constitutes tangible progress on path of national conciliation,
and the committee would pursue efforts to secure release of all the detainees,
Al-Barghouthi said.
The PNA and Hamas have been seeking to remove strains in their bilateral
ties that dramatically deteriorated when the Islamists took over Gaza Strip in
bitter fighting, in June 2007, with followers of Mahmoud Abbas, the president
of the authority and chief of the mainstream group, Fatah.
Al-Barghouthi's PNI was formed on June 17, 2002, in Ramallah, the West
Bank. It views itself as a "democratic third force" in Palestinian politics.
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