Fatah leaders came to the home of a top Hamas official today to begin talks on a possible governing partnership between the long-dominant Palestinian faction and the militant group that crushed it at the polls.
Fatah has been cool to the idea of joining a government led by its powerful Islamist rival, which swept to victory in the January 25 election on a platform of rooting out corruption in a Palestinian Authority dominated by the mainstream faction.
The coalition talks, at the Gaza home of Mahmoud al-Zahar, leader of Hamas's majority parliamentary faction, were the first between the two groups since the ballot.
Neither Hamas officials nor the Fatah delegation, led by Azzam al-Ahmad, head of its legislative bloc, and Ahmed Hilles, a senior faction official in the Gaza Strip, made any comment to reporters at the start of the session.
The meeting was held a day after President Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah asked Hamas Prime Minister-designate Ismail Haniyeh to form a government.
But in the West Bank city of Ramallah, Nabil Shaath, a senior Fatah official, said many members of the faction objected to joining a Hamas-led administration because "we need time to rebuild the movement" after the surprise election defeat.
"Fatah is effectively a participant in power ... through the position of President Abbas. But we need to agree on a political programme in order to take part in the government," Shaath said.
Haniyeh, a 43-year-old Gazan viewed by many Palestinians as a pragmatist who has forged good relations with rival factions, has up to five weeks to put together an administration. Hamas has said it expects to do so within two weeks.
At yesterday's meeting with Haniyeh, Abbas handed him a letter of accreditation calling on Hamas to honour past peace deals with the Jewish state.
Haniyeh said his group would study the document before responding. Hamas is formally sworn to Israel's destruction and has said talks with the Israeli government would be a waste of time.
Some Palestinian political analysts predicted a constitutional crisis if Hamas rejected Abbas's peace agenda. Others thought a deal could be struck but could take time.