Leaders of Fatah and Hamas met for the first time in six months and hailed progress toward ending a rift that has led to separate governments in the West Bank and Gaza, but there was no sign of a breakthrough. The last meeting between President Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal in Cairo in May yielded an agreement aimed at reuniting the Palestinian territories under a single government that would oversee new elections set for May 2012. There has been no progress towards implementation since then. Hamas defeated Fatah in a 2006 parliamentary election and has run the Gaza Strip since 2007, when it seized control of the territory from the Abbas administration. Since then, the Hamas group has built its own government and security forces, complicating any attempt to reunite Gaza with the Western-backed Palestinian Authority. Abbas, in comments carried by the Palestinian news agency WAFA, said after the Thursday talks there were “no differences between us now”. Meshaal, who lives in exile in Damascus, said: “We have opened in a new page of partnership.”
