[FRANCE24] Paleostinian president the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas... a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial...
and Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, exiled chief Khaled Meshaal began talks in Cairo late on Wednesday on a stalled reconciliation deal, an AFP correspondent said.
It is the first meeting between Fatah leader Abbas and Meshaal, who heads the Hamas movement that rules Gazoo, in almost a year, and is aimed at ending years of bitter rivalry between the two groups.
On their visit to Cairo, the two leaders also held separate meetings with Egypt's Islamist President Mohamed Morsi.
Morsi met Abbas and discussed reconciliation between Paleostinian factions, the Israeli blockade on the Gazoo Strip and the financial woes of the West Bank-based Paleostinian Authority, which Abbas's Fatah dominates, an official said.
"Morsi promised to work towards lifting the Gazoo blockade and helping Paleostinians out of their financial crisis, lobbying donors and (our) Arab brothers," Fatah's lead negotiator Azzam al-Ahmed told AFP.
The Egyptian president also held separate talks with Meshaal.
Meshaal and Abbas are to discuss the implementation of a unity agreement reached in April 2011 which was aimed at ending years of infighting between their rival factions.
Years of bitter rivalry between the two Paleostinian national movements went
kaboom!into violence in June 2007 when Hamas forces seized control of Gazoo a year after they won a landslide victory in parliamentary elections.
Under Egyptian mediation, the two factions inked a unity agreement in May 2011, but the main provisions of that deal have yet to be implemented.
Egypt has boosted support for Gazoo since Islamist Morsi was elected president in June.
Meshaal met Abbas in Cairo in February 2012, but there has been little progress towards ending the crippling divide between their movements.