UNITED NATIONS, Oct. 12 (Xinhua) -- United Nations (UN) Secretary-General Antonio Guterres stands by his Middle East peace envoy after a senior Palestinian official criticized the envoy has gone beyond his role in the possible Gaza deal, said a UN spokesman on Friday.
Guterres "fully supports" the efforts of Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Nickolay Mladenov, said Farhan Haq, deputy spokesman for Guterres.
Mladenov and representatives from Egypt and Qatar are mediating a calm deal between Israel and Hamas, including relaxing the Israeli blockade and improving the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Gaza.
Since March 30, violence in Gaza between Israel and Palestinians has been escalating as Palestinians held every Friday anti-Israel marches.
Mladenov has been working tirelessly with all concerned parties, particularly with the Palestinian National Authority, Egypt and Israel, to change the dynamics in Gaza, to avoid escalation, to support intra-Palestinian reconciliation and to address all humanitarian issues, Haq said.
The statement came after Ahmed Majdalani, member of the Palestine Liberation Organization's (PLO) Executive Committee, said Thursday that Mladenov is no longer acceptable to the Palestinian leadership as he allegedly went out of his way to strike a deal over Gaza between Israel and Hamas, which controls Gaza and is in rivalry with Fatah of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
Haq said the UN chief hopes that relieving the humanitarian pressure in Gaza will reduce the tensions that risk a devastating armed conflict in Gaza and create space for Fatah and Hamas to engage seriously with Egypt on reconciliation.
Several agreements on Palestinian national reconciliation have been reached under the sponsorship of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Egypt in the past years, but none of them has resulted in a tangible breakthrough to end the division that began when Hamas took over the Gaza Strip in 2007.
Last October, Hamas and Fatah signed an Egyptian-sponsored reconciliation pact in Cairo to heal their prolonged rift.
Under the deal, Hamas should fully hand over its power in Gaza to the Ramallah-based consensus government last December. But the differences between the two sides forced a delay in the implementation of the deal until further notice.
What is needed is a political breakthrough that will restore intra-Palestinian unity under a single, legitimate national authority; a lifting of the closures of Gaza; and, ultimately, progress toward advancing a negotiated two-state solution based on relevant UN resolutions and previous agreements, said Haq.
