Hamas accepts Egypt invitation to meet Fatah

By Khaled Yacoub Oweis

DAMASCUS (Reuters) - Hamas accepted on Friday an invitation by Egypt to hold talks with President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah faction to solve the Palestinian schism.

"I and all the brothers in the Hamas leadership welcome participating and will seek to make the dialogue a success," Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal told Reuters.

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, in an interview to be published on Saturday, invited the two sides to meet for talks in Egypt. Arab media said Mubarak was seeking to hold what it described as a summit between Meshaal and Abbas in Cairo.

Meshaal, who lives in Syria along with high-level members of the Islamist group in exile, said Hamas has not been informed about when the meeting could be held. There was no immediate response from Fatah.

"We are responding to the Egyptian invitation as we heard about it. The details and any follow-up are up to them," Meshaal said in an interview in the Syrian capital.

Egypt has been critical of an Israeli blockade against the Hamas-controlled Gaza strip that resulted in fuel and food shortages and prompted Hamas fighters to blow up this week a section of an Israeli wall separating the territory from Egypt.

Thousands of Palestinians poured into Egypt from Gaza to re-supply. Egypt started to close the border on Friday but Hamas fighters bulldozed open a new passage.

Meshaal played down any potential for conflict with Egypt and said Hamas would be willing to share control of the main Rafah crossing point with Fatah and the Egyptian authorities.

THANK YOU

"We thank Egypt and urge it to continue to deal with wisdom with this emergency, brought about by the harsh siege," he said.

"The security concerns of Egyptian officials are understandable and we have said that we are ready to share management of the Rafah crossing," Meshaal said.

Israel, whose attacks have killed and wounded scores of Palestinians in Gaza and the West bank over the past few weeks, said the blockade was to counter rocket fire.

Hamas seized control of Gaza in June after routing forces loyal to Abbas in fighting that killed dozens of Palestinians.

The rift between Hamas and Fatah widened after Abbas agreed to re-launch peace talks with Israel following the Annapolis peace conference that convened in the United States in November.

A large meeting of Palestinian leaders opposed to the talks, including Hamas, concluded in Damascus on Friday. A final communiqu said Abbas did not have consensus to negotiate with Israel but did not call on him to sever the negotiations.