Abbas says Hamas row hobbles Palestinian bid at U.N.

[oberliner]

(Reuters) - President Mahmoud Abbas urged Hamas on Saturday to relent in a dispute over the formation of unity government for the Palestinians, saying their bid to become a U.N. member state in September was at stake.

Abbas's Western-backed Fatah movement and Islamist Hamas formally ended their four-year feud in April but remain spilled over the president's insistence that his prime minister, Salam Fayyad, head the proposed new cabinet of political independents.

"We want to go to the United Nations united, and we have to understand, and Hamas and others have to understand, that this government isn't a nationalist government -- it is a technocrat government," Abbas told Voice of Palestine radio.

"They (Hamas) do not understand that we are subject to very sensitive and fateful conditions. We are entering a very tough battle at the United Nations and they are thinking in terms of 'this minister is for us, and that minister is for you'."

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/07/02/us-palestinians-un-abbas-idUSTRE76110E20110702