RAMALLAH (AP) – Ahmed Qureia, a former Palestinian prime minister and one of the architects of interim deals with the Zionist regime, has died at age 85. A key player in the 1993 Oslo accords, Qureia witnessed the rise of the dream of Palestinian statehood that surged during the negotiations. But he also saw those hopes recede, with the prospect of solution to the Zionist-Palestinian conflict drifting further than ever. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas confirmed Qureia’s death. The cause of death was not immediately made public, but Qureia had been ill for some time with a heart condition.
“Abu Alaa stood in the lead defending the causes of his home and people,” Abbas said in a statement carried by the official Wafa news agency, using Qureia’s nickname.
Born in 1937 in Abu Dis, suburb of east Al-Quds in the occupied West Bank, Qureia joined the Fatah movement in 1968.