RAMALLAH, West Bank, Jan 18 (Reuters) - Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah will hold talks with Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal on Saturday, a Palestinian legislator mediating in the factions' power struggle said. The legislator, Ziyad Abu Amr, has been involved in efforts to form a unity government that Palestinians hope can ease Western aid sanctions imposed after Hamas came to power in March. "President Abu Mazen and Khaled Meshaal will meet in Damascus on Saturday," Amr, using Abbas's nickname, told Reuters on Thursday. The talks in the Syrian capital, where Meshaal is living in exile, will be his first with Abbas since Hamas defeated Fatah in a parliamentary election a year ago. An Abbas aide, who declined to be identified, confirmed the president would see Meshaal in Damascus along with the leaders of several other Palestinian factions. Abbas has called for holding new elections if unity government talks with Hamas, an Islamist group that advocates Israel's destruction, fail. The United States, in the meantime, has been seeking to bolster the moderate leader politically and militarily. Washington has publicly committed at least $128 million to the effort, $86 million to train and equip Abbas's presidential guard and up to $42 million to promote democratic "alternatives" to Hamas. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who visited Israel and the Palestinian territories last week, plans to hold a three-way summit with Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert early next month to try to revive statehood talks. Fawzi Barhoum, a Hamas spokesman in Gaza, said the group would welcome a meeting between Meshaal and Abbas. "The date is up to President Abbas," Barhoum said, citing Hamas's desire for "resumption of a national dialogue".
