Ahmad Qurie, leading Palestinian negotiator for Oslo accords, passes away

Ahmad Qurie, the leading Palestinian negotiator of the PLO during the 1990s and Palestinian Authority prime minister between 2003-2006, has died. He was 85.

Qurie is better known for his lead role in negotiating the Oslo accords with  Israel, which brought the PLO leadership, after a long exile in Lebanon and then Tunis, to the occupied West Bank and the Palestinian Authority into existence.

Also known as Abu El-Ala, he was born in Abu Dis in East Jerusalem in 1937 during the British mandate.

The veteran politician joined the Fatah movement in 1968 and became a member of its central council. He was also a member of the executive committee of the PLO.

In 1996 he rose to become the first president of the Palestinian Legislative Council- which Mahmoud Abbas dissolved in 2018.

Qurie spent his final years in Abu Dis, his hometown east of the Old City of Jerusalem.

He was given an official funeral ceremony in Ramallah on Thursday, attended by Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas and other officials, before being laid to rest in Abu Dis.