|
JERUSALEM, Dec 25 (AFP): Israel Sunday edged away from a ban on voting in east Jerusalem for next month's Palestinian parliamentary election in order not to give leader Mahmud Abbas a pretext to delay the ballot.
The polls, to take place on January 25 across the West Bank and Gaza Strip, are the first legislative elections since 1996 and could radically re-draw the political scene with radical group Hamas to participate for the first time.
Last Wednesday, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's office said Israel would bar those in occupied east Jerusalem from participating in the vote, triggering a furious Palestinian response and speculation that the vote may be delayed.
But following a call from the United States for both sides to resolve the dispute, a senior Israeli official appeared to be backing off the hard line.
A Sharon aide told AFP Sunday that the administration "will contemplate" the possibility of Palestinians voting at five polling stations in east Jerusalem, which Israel occupied in 1967 and has since annexed.
|