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JERUSALEM — Ahmed Qurei, a former Palestinian prime minister and negotiator who helped conceive and nurture the Oslo Accords, the interim peace agreements reached between the Palestine Liberation Group and Israel within the Nineteen Nineties, died on Wednesday in Ramallah, within the West Financial institution. He was 86.
His demise was confirmed by the president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, a longtime comrade — and generally rival — who eulogized Mr. Qurei as a “stable fighter” who devoted his life to defending the Palestinian folks and trigger. Mr. Qurei’s longtime chief of workers, Salah Elayan, stated that he died of an an infection at a hospital and that he had suffered from coronary heart issues.
Mr. Qurei (pronounced kuh-RAY) was a member of the dwindling Palestinian previous guard — activists who joined Yasir Arafat and his secular Fatah motion, based in exile in 1959, and who strived to place the Palestinian trigger on the world agenda, whether or not by diplomacy or armed battle.
In late 1992, whereas on a working go to to London, Mr. Qurei met with an Israeli educational, Yair Hirschfeld, who had requested to see him. On the time it was technically unlawful for Israelis to fulfill with P.L.O. officers, however the assembly led to secret talks in Norway sanctioned by Israeli officers, with Mr. Qurei appearing because the lead negotiator for the Palestinian aspect.
These negotiations resulted within the Oslo Accords, the landmark agreements that included mutual recognition between the federal government of Israel, then led by Yitzhak Rabin, and the P.L.O., led by Mr. Arafat.
The accords additionally established the Palestinian Authority, an interim physique fashioned to train restricted Palestinian self-rule within the Israeli-occupied West Financial institution and Gaza Strip, and paved the best way for the Palestinian management to return to the occupied territories from exile.
The interim agreements have been presupposed to result in a complete, everlasting deal by 1999. Though the Oslo Accords didn’t spell out that deal, the Palestinians envisioned an unbiased state within the West Financial institution and Gaza Strip, with its capital in East Jerusalem.
Mr. Qurei moved again to Abu Dis, the village on the jap fringe of Jerusalem the place he was born, and set about serving to to construct the establishments of putative statehood.
However the post-Oslo optimism shortly dissipated, and the institution of a Palestinian state now appears as distant as ever. The Palestinians have had no formal peace negotiations with Israel since 2014, and the Palestinian polity is split between the Palestinian Authority, which nominally administers components of the West Financial institution, and Hamas, the Islamic militant group that controls Gaza. Help for the Palestinian Authority has eroded, with many Palestinians accusing it of corruption and of serving solely Israel’s pursuits, and Israel now has a right-wing authorities that isn’t inclined to barter.
Mr. Qurei’s Israeli and American interlocutors remembered him as a reliable, artistic, shrewd and sometimes humorous negotiator.
“Collectively we’ve tried to carry peace to our peoples in an understanding that it’s our duty to make a greater future to our youngsters,” Tzipi Livni, a former Israeli minister and peace negotiator, wrote on Twitter after Mr. Qurei’s demise.
Mr. Elayan, Mr. Qurei’s former chief of workers, stated the Israelis “knew he was powerful however appreciated him since you may attain an settlement with him,” including that Mr. Qurei was in a position to persuade Mr. Arafat to see issues his approach.
Dennis Ross, a Center East envoy and the chief peace negotiator within the administrations of presidents George H.W. Bush and Invoice Clinton, recalled Mr. Qurei as “somebody who was partaking and sometimes sensible as a negotiator.”
“He knew methods to acknowledge Israeli issues about safety to realize acceptance of Palestinian wants,” Mr. Ross wrote in an electronic mail.
However at one essential juncture within the peace course of, Mr. Qurei withdrew. In the summertime of 2000, President Clinton hosted Mr. Arafat, Prime Minister Ehud Barak of Israel and their negotiating groups at Camp David in an formidable try to achieve a remaining settlement.
Mr. Clinton grew irate when Mr. Qurei, then the chief Palestinian negotiator, refused to supply a map displaying what territorial compromise the Palestinians may settle for. Mr. Clinton shouted at him, witnesses stated, accusing him of negotiating in dangerous religion.
The president’s outburst left Mr. Qurei “dazed,” Martin Indyk, then the U.S. ambassador to Israel and a key member of the American crew, recalled in his memoir, “Harmless Overseas” (2009).
“He was humiliated and deeply offended,” Mr. Indyk wrote, including, “He withdrew from the negotiations and repaired to his bed room, the place he stayed in his pajamas for a lot of the remainder of the summit.”
The talks failed; a couple of weeks later, a Palestinian rebellion started.
Ahmed Qurei was born in Abu Dis on Oct. 12, 1936, to Ali and Dawoudeyah Qurei. His father was a sheep farmer. Ahmed used to stroll from his village to highschool in downtown East Jerusalem. He moved to Saudi Arabia in his 20s to work for the Arab Financial institution and stayed for a number of years.
He married Heyam Samman in 1961. She survives him, as do their 5 kids — Ala, Amer, Manal, Esam and Mona — and 17 grandchildren.
In 1968, Mr. Qurei joined Fatah and moved to Beirut, Lebanon, the place he established Samed, the financial arm of the P.L.O., the umbrella group for a disparate array of Palestinian political and militant factions. In Lebanon, Samed distributed money to the households of Palestinians killed in assaults on Israel and arrange manufacturing workshops to make use of Palestinian refugees.
After Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982, Mr. Qurei and the remainder of the P.L.O. management decamped to Tunis. There Mr. Qurei served because the director normal of the P.L.O.’s Division of Financial Affairs and Planning.
After his return to Abu Dis within the West Financial institution simply past Jerusalem’s metropolis limits, he was appointed minister of economic system, commerce and trade within the first Palestinian authorities. He turned a lawmaker within the Palestinian Legislative Council after parliamentary elections in 1996 and served as its speaker till 2003, when he turned prime minister, changing Mr. Abbas, who had resigned over variations with Mr. Arafat.
Mr. Qurei, popularly identified by his nickname, Abu Ala, additionally had his quarrels with Mr. Arafat and threatened to resign at the least twice.
He lastly did stop, alongside together with his authorities, in 2006, shortly earlier than Hamas beat Fatah in a landslide election, upending a long time of Fatah domination of Palestinian politics. By then, Mr. Arafat was lifeless and Mr. Abbas had succeeded him as president of the Palestinian Authority.
Mr. Qurei had warned Mr. Abbas towards holding the election, apparently scared of a loss to Hamas. A yr later, Hamas seized full management of Gaza. The Palestinians haven’t held parliamentary elections since.
In his later years, Mr. Qurei was surrounded by indicators of dashed goals and Palestinian disappointment.
An unfinished Palestinian Parliament constructing in Abu Dis, on which development was began within the Nineteen Nineties, stands derelict. Abu Dis is now separated from Jerusalem by a excessive concrete wall, a part of the safety barrier that Israel erected within the early 2000s to stop Palestinian suicide bombers from reaching Israeli cities, now a grey testomony to failure.
Mr. Ross recalled telling Mr. Qurei in 2000 that the parameters outlined by Mr. Clinton for a complete Israeli-Palestinian peace deal wouldn’t be pursued by the incoming Bush administration, and that the Palestinians would pay a extra long-term value if Mr. Arafat rejected them.
Mr. Qurei shook his head sadly, Mr. Ross recounted, and stated, “Then I’m afraid it may take one other 50 years.”
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