RAMALLAH, April 19 (Xinhua) -- The left-wing Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) announced Thursday it will boycott the upcoming session of the Palestinian National Council (PNC).
The PFLP said in a press statement that it will boycott the upcoming PNC meeting, despite "it's keenness on the role, status and representation of the PLO."
It also said that the PFLP has made efforts to hold a unifying PNC session, hinting at the current impediments facing the internal reconciliation process between rival Fatah and Hamas parties and the absence of the diaspora representatives.
The PNC is considered the highest legislative body in the PLO. The coming PNC session scheduled on April 30 will be held in Ramallah, without the representatives of the diaspora Palestinian groups.
The PLO is composed of 11 political factions, excluding Islamic Hamas movement that rules the Gaza Strip. The PFLP is considered the second biggest party in the PLO, after Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah party.
Elaborating on the press statement, senior PFLP member Hussein Mansour said that the boycott will include its members within the participating unions and syndicates that are expected to attend the session.
Mansour explained that "holding the PNC with such representation and without all of the Palestinians under the darkness of the occupation in Ramallah, deepens the division in the Palestinian scene and nurtures exclusion as an approach."
The purpose of the upcoming PNC session is to elect a new leadership for the PLO, said Ahmad Majdalani, a member of the PLO Executive Committee.
Majdalalni said last month that both Islamic Jihad movement and Hamas were invited to attend the meeting.
The PNC is a 750-member body representing political factions, unions and Palestinian groups inside Palestine and abroad.
The last ordinary PNC session was held in Gaza Strip in 1996, followed by an extra meeting held in the West Bank in 2009.
