Hamas official says reconciliation meeting with Fatah held next week

A senior Hamas official said Saturday that the reconciliation meeting between his party and Fatah party led by Palestinian National Authority President Mahmoud Abbas will be held next week.

In a press statement, Salah al-Bardaweel, a Gaza-based senior Hamas leader, said that his movement agreed with Fatah to hold a meeting next week to discuss security arrangements in order to reach an inter-reconciliation agreement.

However, the official said that the two parties haven't yet agreed on the place where they will convene the meeting, adding that Damascus will be one of the options.

The reconciliation meeting was scheduled to be held in Damascus in Oct. 20. However Fatah officials asked their Hamas rivals to move the place to another capital "due to arguments between President Abbas and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in Libya on Oct. 10."

Azzam al-Ahmad, chief of Fatah delegation to the reconciliation talks with Hamas told the Ramallah-based al-Ayyam daily that the two rival factions had agreed to hold the meeting next week.

"We agreed to hold another meeting, but so far we haven't agreed yet on the place where the meeting will be held," al-Ahmad said, adding that "Fatah is keen to resolve the misunderstanding with the Syrian leadership."

The first meeting was held in Damascus at the end of September, where the two sides agreed on the issues of elections and the reforming of Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), but the file of security remained unresolved.

Source: Xinhua