GAZA (Xinhua/MEMO) – Leaders of rival Palestinian parties and Algerian officials have started a meeting on resuming reconciliation dialogue between Palestinian factions in the Algerian capital Algiers, Palestinian officials said.
The officials said that leaders of the Fatah party and the Hamas resistance movement met with Algerian officials to prepare for a Palestinian national dialogue that will later include leaders of other factions.
Fayez Abu Eitta, Palestine’s ambassador to Algeria, told the Palestinian official agency (WAFA) that the Fatah delegation was headed by Azzam al-Ahmad, a member of the Executive Committees of the Palestine Liberation Organization and Fatah Central Committee.
Meanwhile, Hamas movement in Gaza said in a press statement that its delegation included two members of its political bureau, Khalil al-Hayya, and Hussam Badran.
The two Palestinian factions were invited by Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune to visit Algiers.
The Palestinian division began in 2007 following Hamas’s takeover of the besieged Gaza Strip in an election.
The two movements have formerly engaged in numerous discussions in a bid to reach a comprehensive reconciliation agreement. However, all the mediation efforts have failed so far.
Hamas, said on Friday that meetings in Algiers are intended to bring an end to the internal division, Quds Press has reported.
According to Hamas official Basem Naim, the meetings might continue until February and could be fruitful because of Algeria’s general effectiveness among Arab states. The fact that they are taking place in advance of the Arab League meeting scheduled for April could also be a factor.
“Algeria is a central Arab country with the Palestinian cause at the top of its foreign policy agenda,” he explained. Moreover, he added, both the Algerian state and people are interested in the Palestinian cause.
The Hamas official suggested that Algeria’s efforts to resolve the Palestinian internal dispute were prompted by neighboring Morocco’s normalization of its relations with the Zionist regime.