Hamas, Fatah chiefs start talks on Palestinian reconciliation

CAIRO - Politburo chief of Islamic Hamas movement Khaled Meshaal and Palestinian President and Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas started Wednesday night their meeting here on inter- Palestinian reconciliation, Egypt's official MENA news agency reported.

Their talks, sponsored by Egypt, aim to enforce a reconciliation agreement signed here in 2011 between Fatah and Hamas.

Earlier Wednesday, Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi held talks separately with Meshaal and Abbas on the issues to refresh the reconciliation file.

Hamas won the Palestinian parliamentary elections in 2006, and seized the Gaza Strip by force a year later and kept the Fatah-led Palestinian National Authority (PNA) confined to the West Bank.

In May 2011, Hamas and Fatah signed an Egypt-brokered reconciliation deal in Cairo, under which the two movements agreed to form a transitional government of technocrats. Later, the Palestinian factions agreed to hold elections in May 2012.

In December 2011, leaders of the Islamic Hamas movement and Fatah party agreed to honestly implement the Egypt-brokered reconciliation pact.