By Mohammed Assadi RAMALLAH, West Bank, June 4 (Reuters) - Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas called on Wednesday for reconciliation talks with his Islamist Hamas rivals in a speech that did not repeat previous demands that they first give up the Gaza Strip. "Let us hold a national and comprehensive dialogue ... to end the national schism which has inflicted severe damage on our cause and more suffering on the Palestinian people (in Gaza)" he said in televised remarks. Hamas routed forces from Abbas's secular Fatah faction to take over Gaza a year ago. He responded by dissolving a Hamas-led unity government and reviving U.S.-sponsored peace negotiations with Israel, which Hamas refuses to recognise. The peace efforts have shown little sign of progress and Abbas, his domestic popularity sapped, has tried to repair ties with Hamas -- though previously he conditioned this on the Islamists first submitting to his authority and ceding Gaza. Israel has watched the internal Palestinian contacts warily, saying it could review its own relationship with Abbas if he were to renew the Fatah-Hamas partnership. Abbas aides were not immediately available to clarify whether he had indeed softened his terms for reconciliation. Nor was there word from either side on when such talks might begin. Sami Abu Zuhri, a senior Hamas official, said his faction "welcomes the call for a national and comprehensive dialogue and reiterates its readiness to resume this dialogue without preconditions". Rapprochement between Fatah and Hamas, Abbas said, could prompt him to bring forward presidential and parliamentary elections currently slated for 2009 and 2010 respectively. Hamas trounced the long-dominant Fatah in 2006 legislative elections. A March opinion poll suggested that Ismail Haniyeh, who heads the Hamas administration in Gaza, would beat Abbas in a presidential contest by one percentage point. The prospect of Hamas making electoral gains in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where Abbas now holds sway, is likely to stoke opposition in Israel to ceding that territory for a future Palestinian state. (Additional reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza)
Palestinian youths throw stones at Israeli border police officers during a protest against the construction of Israel's controversial barrier in the West Bank village of Nilleen, near Ramallah, June 4, 2008. ...
