The New Nation - Internet Edition

AFP, Ramallah

Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas on Monday gave the Islamist Hamas movement which controls Gaza an end-of-year deadline to resume dialogue with his leadership or face snap elections.

"We reiterate today that we are going to set a deadline of the end of the year for the launch of a national dialogue," Abbas said in a televised address. "If our appeal goes unheeded, we will call fresh presidential and parliamentary elections." Hamas walked out of Egyptian-brokered reconciliation talks with Abbas's secular Fatah movement earlier this month and has said it will only return if his security forces free Islamist supporters in the West Bank. The Western-backed president said the new elections would be "based entirely on a proportional representation system," not the half proportional, half constituency-based system used in the last parliamentary elections in 2006 that saw Hamas win an upset victory.