Hamas Trades Blame with Abbas on Reconciliation

Hamas on Saturday rejected accusations by President Mahmud Abbas that it was blocking Palestinian reconciliation efforts with support from Iran.

"The accusations made Abbas that Hamas receives Iranian instructions to block (inter-Palestinian) reconciliation efforts are not true because it is he who is blocking the reconciliation," Hamas MP Yahiya Musa said.

"Abu Mazen (Abbas) must be honest and tell his people about the messages he has received from Israel and American stopping him from working for reconciliation," he said in statements posted on Hamas's website Ressalah.

On Friday Abbas said in an exclusive interview with Agence France Presse that Iran has ordered the Islamist movement Hamas not to reconcile with its long-time foe and his secular party, Fatah.

Until now Hamas has refused to say yes or no to the initiative to put an end to divisions, form a new government and prepare for elections.

"Now the ball is in their court," Abbas said, at his headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

Hamas and Fatah have been at loggerheads since the early 1990s.

Tensions heightened after Hamas trounced Fatah in 2006 legislative elections and boiled over in 2007, when the enmity erupted into bloodshed that saw the Islamists kick their secular rivals out of Gaza.

Since then, Gaza has been effectively cut off from the West Bank, which is under the control of Fatah, and repeated attempts at reconciliation have led nowhere.