Hamas and Fatah delay unity government talks

CAIRO // The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, and his rival Hamas leader, Khaled Meshaal, yesterday postponed talks on forming a unified government, a Fatah official said.

The official with the Abbas-led party said the talks were postponed "because Hamas continues to prevent the election committee from registering voters in Gaza," the Islamist-ruled Palestinian territory.

He added that Hamas, which has been split internally about a unity government with the secular Fatah, has "not yet informed Abbas of its formal approval to end internal disputes on forming the government".

Mr Abbas and Mr Meshaal began their meetings in Cairo on Wednesday to implement the terms of a reconciliation deal they signed in May, which called for an interim government and general elections in a year.

Representatives from both Fatah and Hamas have met several times to negotiate details of the agreement.

A lengthy disagreement about the post of prime minister appeared to have been resolved in early February, when Mr Abbas and Mr Meshaal signed a deal that put the president at the head of the interim government.

The government line-up was to have been announced shortly afterwards, but the agreement was met with prolonged opposition from Gaza-based members of Hamas, as well as some officials in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where Mr Abbas's government is based.