Arab League chiefs 'pressured Palestine's Abbas over Dahlan's succession'

A delegation of Arab League chiefs have allegedly pressured Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to approve his rival, Mohammad Dahlan, as his successor.

Arabi 21 reports that the Secretary General of the Arab League, Ahmed Abul Gheit, accompanied by several other former leaders of the League, spoke with Abbas over their plans to organise a transfer of power.

The dignitaries were officially visiting Ramallah in order to attend the opening of the Yasser Arafat museum, which was reportedly a front for a meeting with Abbas to encourage reconciliation.

Abbas reportedly turned down the dignitaries' proposals and instead told a crowd of Fatah supporters that he knew who had killed Yasser Arafat.

Abbas has previously accused Dahlan of the murder and expelled him from the party following a series of charges for murder and corruption.

Abul Gheit, who was formerly Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s foreign minister, recently attended a conference on the future of the Fatah movement, hosted by Dahlan.

Abbas has received increasing pressure to allow Dahlan to return to Palestine in recent weeks, after the country's constitutional court repealed criminal immunity for elected law-makers in the country.

The decision was seen by many to be targeted at Dahlan and his associates, as Dahlan faces charges of criminal corruption.