Hamas wants to implement Palestinian unity deal with rival Fatah

Jan 6, 2012, 14:02 GMT

Cairo - Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal said on Friday the Palestinian Islamist group wanted to complete implementation of a unity deal with the rival Fatah party to ensure that presidential and parliamentary elections take place in May.

'We are keen at this delicate stage to implement all of the reconciliation files, including the creation of a unity government that sets the scene for elections,' Mashaal told reporters in Cairo.

Mashaal and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas agreed to hold elections in May 2012 during talks in Cairo in November to finalize a unity deal signed last May.

'We are interested in enhancing Palestinian unity and making the home front stronger against the (Israeli) occupation,' Mashaal said after talks with Arab League head Nabil al-Arabi. Mashaal returned to Syria, where he lives in exile.

Egypt brokered the unity deal to end a bitter, and at times violent, feud between Hamas and Abbas's secular Fatah party.

Relations soured between the two rivals after Hamas defeated Fatah in the 2006 parliamentary election. Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip in June 2007 after routing Fatah forces loyal to Abbas. Abbas's Fatah governs the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

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