1st round of Palestinian reconciliation dialogue in Cairo 'positive': statement

The first round of reconciliation dialogue held in Cairo on Tuesday between leaders of Hamas movement and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah Party were "positive," an official statement said, Xinhua news agency reported.

An emailed statement, issued after ten hours of dialogue held at the Egyptian Security Intelligence Headquarters in Cairo between the leaders of the two rival groups, said the dialogue was dominated by a positive atmosphere.

"The two movements, Fatah and Hamas, held their first session of national Palestinian dialogue in a bid to end internal division and achieve unity," said the statement issued by the leaders of the two movements at the end of the session.

The statement also said that the dialogue was held under a full Egyptian sponsorship, and had deeply tackled a series of reconciliation issued aiming at lifting sufferings for the people in Gaza.

Leaders of the two rival groups arrived in Cairo on Monday night to hold comprehensive dialogue to reach a mechanism to implement previous reconciliation understandings reached in the past few years.

They headed to Cairo upon an official Egyptian invitation to hold a comprehensive dialogue that leads to ending up more than ten years of internal division between the two groups.

The dialogue in Cairo was launched after Hamas movement had announced in September to dissolve a controversial administrative committee for ruling Gaza affairs.

After dissolving the committee, Abbas instructed last week to send Rami Hamdallah, the prime minister of the Palestinian consensus government, his cabinet and Palestinian security chiefs to Gaza to hand over ruling Gaza.

Earlier on Tuesday, Palestinian sources close to the dialogue said that the dialogue in Cairo will continue until Thursday, adding that the leaders of the two groups are to hold a news conference of what they would accomplish.

The sources said that after that they will go back to the Palestinian territories and wait for another Egyptian invitation for a wider dialogue that will include leaders of other Palestinian factions and political powers.

Meanwhile, the office of Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh said Haniyeh received a phone call from the head of Hamas delegation to the dialogue Saleh Arouri, saying that the dialogue "is so far positive."

-- BERNAMA