GAZA – Leaders of the Islamist Hamas group will resume talks with Egyptian officials this week on proposals for reconciliation with the rival Fatah group of Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas.
Egypt has been mediating for more than a year to heal the split in the Palestinian national movement, ahead of presidential and parliamentary elections next year.
Unity would boost Mr Abbas in peacemaking with Israel – which Hamas refuses to recognise.
Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said a delegation from the Gaza Strip, which Hamas seized from Fatah in 2007, would be led by the group’s chief, Khaled Meshaal, who is based in Damascus.
He said talks would begin today. “We are interested in ending divisions and reaching a reconciliation,” said Mr Abu Zuhri, declining to outline his group’s final position.
Mr Abbas has visited Cairo recently and discussed the reconciliation proposal with Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak.
Egypt last week proposed delaying Palestinian elections to allow more time to work out a powersharing deal between the two rival groups. Election are legally due on January 25th, 2010, but no firm date has been published for the next ballot.
One senior Fatah official said his movement would accept a delay, though others said that would be conditional on a deal with Hamas by the end of October.
Fatah’s acceptance of the delay puts the onus on Hamas, which won the 2006 parliamentary election. A dispute over the mutual detention of hundreds of supporters by the two groups has blocked progress in the talks.
Fatah administers the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Hamas rules Gaza – the two territories where Palestinians want to establish a state following a peace deal with Israel.
In his recent speech to the UN General Assembly, US president Barack Obama renewed his support for a two-state solution.
Unlike Fatah, which sees the two-state solution as an end to the conflict with Israel, Hamas offers only to negotiate a long-term ceasefire, which Israel has repeatedly rejected. – (Reuters)