DOHA (Dispatches) -- Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal met with a senior Iranian official in the Qatari capital Thursday, Palestinian sources close to Hamas said.
Hamas and Tehran were close before the group broke with Syrian President Bashar Assad during the Syrian conflict.
On Thursday, Meshaal and Iran's speaker of parliament, Ali Larijani, discussed regional developments, the Palestinian issue, the blockade of Gaza and "Israeli threats”, Hamas said in a statement.
Larijani met with Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, Foreign Minister Khalid bin Muhammad Al Attiyah, and chairman of the Qatari Consultative Assembly Muhammad bin Mubarak al-Khulaifi.
Meeting with the Qatari foreign minister, Larijani said, "The Islamic Republic of Iran treats the Qatari emir’s observations regarding the regional issues as positive and is after the expansion of cooperation based on mutual respect.”
"The establishment of security and development in the Middle East region would materialize through the assistance of all the regional countries,” the Iranian official added.
The Qatari official said what the countries shared was more than what they differed on and that they had to take steps towards the development of bilateral relations based on common ground.
Larijani said Iran’s nuclear talks with the P5+1 group -- Britain, France, China, the United States and Russia plus Germany -- have featured progress.
However, he said, "We had to prioritize an intellectual perspective of the talks over a business-minded one.”