Jamal Muhaisen, a member of Fatah’s Central Committee, told the Voice of Palestine Radio that “Abbas initiative aims to get the Palestinian people out of the crisis of around four years of internal division.”

Muhaisen added that Abbas instructed members of Fatah’s Central Committee to prepare for a meeting with the Hamas leadership in Cairo to present the proposal for early elections.

Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad recently called for holding general elections in Palestinian territories to pave the way to overcome the internal split and “to reunify the two parts of homeland and its institutions.”

The elections were due in January 2010 but it has been postponed by Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO)'s Central Council until a further notice after Hamas said it will not allow voting in the coastal strip unless differences with Abbas are settled and a reconciliation agreement is reached.

Abbas was elected as president of the Palestinian Authority (PA) in January 2005 to a four-year term. PA’s Basic Law allows him to stay in power for another year.

Hamas and some Palestinian legal experts have openly challenged Abbas' right to remain in power after the expiration of his term.

In May, Fatah and Hamas signed a reconciliation deal in Cairo to end around four years of internal division. The split widened in 2007, when Hamas, which won the parliamentary elections in 2006, routed forces loyal to Abbas and took over Gaza.

Since then, representatives of the two movements held several meetings abroad but failed to resolve the obstacles blocking its implementation, particularly the formation of interim government, the obstacle of the new prime minister and the issue of passports.

Abbas wants to retain caretaker Prime Minister Salam Fayyad as the head of the technocratic government. The interim government would rule the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip and the Fatah-ruled West Bank.

The Palestinian President fears that failure to appoint Fayyad would prompt the US and EU to suspend financial aid to the Palestinians. The West sees Hamas as a terrorist organization. He also fears that Israel suspends the transfer of tax revenues to the PA.

Hamas rejected his nomination since it considers Fayyad part of the Palestinian split and nominated its Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh and Jamal al-Khodari, the head of the Gaza- based Popular Campaign Against the Siege, for the post.