Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas and his rival Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal on Thursday postponed talks on forming a unified government, a Fatah official said, in a further delay to ending an almost five-year rift. The official with the Abbas-led party said the talks were postponed "because Hamas continues to prevent the election committee from registering voters in Gaza," the Islamist-ruled Palestinian territory.
He added that Hamas, which has been split internally on agreeing the unity government with the secular Fatah, has "not yet informed Abbas of its formal approval to end internal disputes on forming the government." Abbas and Meshaal began their meetings in Cairo on Wednesday to implement the terms of a reconciliation deal they signed in the Egyptian capital in May, which called for an interim government and general elections in a year. Representatives from both Fatah and Hamas have met several times to agree a final line-up for the government to end their division after Hamas violently routed Fatah from Gaza in 2007.