The New Nation - Internet Edition

AFP, Hebron

President Mahmud Abbas on Thursday called on Hamas to resume reconciliation talks with his secular Fatah party which broke down in November.

"We want them to return to reason," Abbas said while on a visit to the southern West Bank city of Hebron.

"We do not want to get rid of them, they are a part of the Palestinian people, whatever their ideas and vision may be, and however they may differ from ours."

"But we want them to find the right way, we will not accept for this nation to remain torn apart. We call and continue to call for national dialogue." "It is true that they refused dialogue without reason, but we tell themt 'come so that we can reach an agreement with you'." He also rejected any clashes with the Islamist group, saying that "democracy" must be the sole resolution of internal Palestinian discord.

"We do not wish for clashes, a civil war is a destructive war, it does not bring any result," he said. "We refuse to resort to arms."

Abbas recently said that if Hamas did not return to reconciliation talks by the end of the year, he would call snap parliamentary and presidential elections.

Hamas has warned that it would no longer recognise Abbas if he remained in power after his term expired on January 8 and would not allow the holding of new parliamentary polls before they are due in January 2010.

Hamas boycotted reconciliation talks that were due to take place in Cairo in November to protest the "political detentions" of its members by pro-Abbas forces in the West Bank.

Simmering tensions between Western-shunned, Islamist Hamas and Western-backed secular Fatah burst into all-out street warfare in June 2007, when the Islamists forced pro-Abbas forces out of the Gaza Strip.