GAZA CITY - The Islamist fundamentalist movement Hamas is ready to join the Palestine Liberation Organisation, which groups together all the major Palestinian factions, one of its main leaders said Monday.
"Our decision to participate in the PLO is not new. It is a long-standing and clear decision," Mahmud Zahar told reporters after talks with Palestinian leader and PLO chairman Mahmud Abbas in Gaza City.
Disagreements over the PLO charter and the size of Hamas's representation in the council had delayed its incorporation.
Progress, however, was made on these matters during inter-Palestinian talks that took place in Cairo in the middle of March, Zahar said.
"A committee grouping the general secretaries (of the Palestinian factions) was set up to look at this issue and the results have opened the way to the entry of Hamas and other factions into the PLO," he said.
Zahar said that Hamas's entry did not mean that it has renounced its commitment to a Palestine incorporating modern-day Israel.
The PLO charter calls for the creation of a Palestinian state only in land conquered by Israel in 1967.
"We are renouncing not one iota of Palestinian land but we can reach a temporary compromise with other factions," he said.
Fatah is the largest movement in the PLO, which represents Palestinians living in the occupied territories as well as the diaspora.
The PLO controls the Palestinian Authority set up by the 1993 Oslo accords.
Abbas succeeded veteran Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat both as head of the PLO and president of the PA following his death in November.
Earlier this month, Hamas announced that it would join the Palestinian political mainstream and stand in July parliamentary elections after years voluntarily in the cold.
03/28/2005 14:35 GMT