Abbas to meet Hamas chief Mashaal in Doha next week

Accepting Qatar’s invitation, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas will arrive next week in Doha, where he will meet with the emir of Qatar Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani and Hamas’s political bureau chief Khaled Mashaal.

In a conversation with the Palestinian news site al-Risalah on Tuesday, an official in Fatah said Abbas accepted the invitation and ordered the relevant people to start preparing the visit, which will be announced in the upcoming days.

According to the official, the meeting between Abbas and al-Thani will focus on several Palestinian issues, mainly the reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas, the measures the Palestinian Authority intends to take against Israel in the international arena and the French peace initiative.

The official added that a meeting between Abbas and Mashaal is expected to take place as well, to discuss the ways to reach national unity.

“During the month of Ramadan we have an opportunity to terminate our split and reach reconciliation through the expected meeting with Fatah,” said the deputy chairman of Hamas’s political bureau, Musa Abu Marzouk.

Talks started in December in Doha but were soon halted as controversies between the parties erupted. Now, both Qatar and Egypt’s President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi are pressing the parties to renew talks.