Ahmed Qureia, top Palestinian negotiator with Israel, dies

RAMALLAH, West Financial institution (AP) — Ahmed Qureia, a former Palestinian prime minister and one of many architects of interim peace offers with Israel, has died at age 85.

A key participant within the 1993 Oslo peace accords, Qureia witnessed the rise of the dream of Palestinian statehood that surged in the course of the negotiations. However he additionally noticed these hopes recede, with the prospect of a two-state resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian battle drifting additional than ever. Domestically, Qureia was riddled with corruption expenses that tainted his fame.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas confirmed Qureia’s loss of life on Wednesday. The reason for loss of life was not instantly made public, however Qureia had been unwell for a while with a coronary heart situation.

“Abu Alaa stood within the lead defending the causes of his dwelling and other people,” Abbas stated in an announcement carried by the official Wafa information company, utilizing Qureia’s nickname.

Born in 1937 in Abu Dis, suburb of east Jerusalem within the occupied West Financial institution, Qureia joined the Fatah motion in 1968.

He rose shortly by the ranks below the management of its founder, late Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, and have become a member of its decision-making physique, the Central Committee, in 1989. He was additionally a member of the PLO Govt Committee.

Qureia headed the Palestinian delegation to Oslo, the place intensive talks with Israel led to the peace accords in 1993, which created the Palestinian Authority and arrange self-rule areas within the Palestinian territories. Throughout ensuing rounds of negotiations with Israelis, he met all Israeli prime ministers who had been in workplace earlier than 2004, together with Yitzhak Rabin, Ariel Sharon, Shimon Peres, Benjamin Netanyahu and Ehud Olmert, and U.S. Presidents Invoice Clinton and George W. Bush.

Peace talks have collapsed within the three many years for the reason that accords. Israel has pushed up settlement constructing within the West Financial institution, and imposed a blockade on the Gaza Strip after the Islamic militant Hamas took energy there after it routed forces loyal to Fatah. Violence is once more flaring up between the perimeters, particularly within the West Financial institution.

In a 2013 interview with the Related Press marking twenty years for the reason that Oslo agreements, Qureia stated that if he knew then what he is aware of now he wouldn’t have agreed to the accords.

“With such sorts of blocs of settlements? No. With the closure of Jerusalem? No. Under no circumstances,” Qureia stated in an interview at his workplace within the Jerusalem suburb of Abu Dis.

After the institution of the PA, Qureia gained a seat within the first parliamentary elections in 1996 and chaired the Palestinian Legislative Council.

After Abbas resigned because the PA’s first prime minister in 2003, Arafat changed him with Qureia. He held the publish till 2006, when the militant Hamas group scored a landslide victory within the second Palestinian elections.

Throughout his tenure as prime minister, Qureia was the topic of controversy after studies accused his household of getting monetary curiosity in an organization that bought Egyptian cement to Israel, which the latter used to construct the West Financial institution separation barrier.