Hamas moves to join PLO: report

Hamas has reportedly agreed to join the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) following talks between Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in Cairo on Thursday.

The Associated Press reported the Islamist movement will join the PLO, an umbrella Palestinian organization that was once the main representative of Palestinians, but has been overshadowed in recent years by divisions between Hamas and Fatah.

Hamas has never been a member of the PLO, and its admission into the organization is part of a number of reconciliation steps taken towards forming a unity government with Fatah.

The specifics of the agreement or how much influence Hamas will have in the Fatah-dominated PLO have yet to be disclosed.

Meshaal and Abbas met in Cairo at around midday for talks marking the culmination of three days of discussions between Hamas, Fatah and the other 13 Palestinian factions aimed at thrashing out a stalled unity deal.

Egyptian intelligence chief Murad Muwafi and Palestinian independents also took part.

Abbas and Meshaal met for three hours on Wednesday evening, their second round of unity talks in Cairo in less than a month, but they made no statements.

Independent Palestinian MP Mustafa Barghouti said the participation of unaffiliated delegates such as himself and businessman Munib al-Masri alongside representatives of Hamas and Islamic Jihad was "an historic event."

"It is the first time there is a unified leadership for all political and intellectual streams," he said.

"The meeting concerns national strategy and policy, and the program of resistance of the Palestinian people, as well as the activation of the PLO and the reform of its leadership," he said.

Islamic Jihad is also hoping to join the PLO. The group's leader, Ramadan Shallah, will attend the talks along with all the other faction heads, members of the PLO Executive Committee and the speaker of the Palestinian National Council (PNC), Selim Zaanoun.

Fatah delegation chief Azzam al-Ahmed said the meeting would look at the possibility of setting up a new PLO leadership body which would be "the first concrete application of the Cairo agreement, of the reconciliation and of the partnership between all the political forces".

The new body "will focus on the restructuring of the PLO leadership and of the PNC," he said, referring to the PLO's parliament-in-exile which has more than 650 members on its books but which has not met in full session for 15 years.

It would also discuss "the next stage in PLO's political program" which would have to be approved by a new session of the PNC, Ahmed said.

"This body will demonstrate the incontestable fact that the PLO is the only legitimate representative of the Palestinian people," he said.

Hamas officials confirmed that the meeting would look at the proposed new body's "mechanisms of action and how different factions could join it."

Israel and the US have strongly condemned the Hamas and Fatah rapprochement.

(AFP, AP, Al-Akhbar)