Efforts by the Arab world to reconcile the Palestinian Fateh and Hamas factions could be put back for years if unity talks in Cairo next week end without agreement, a diplomat involved in the process said on Monday.

The Islamist group Hamas has threatened to boycott the November 10 negotiations unless Fateh halts its “arrests and repression” of Hamas activists in the West Bank and releases some 400 Hamas prisoners it says are held in West Bank jails.

Conflict between the two factions intensified when Hamas seized the Gaza Strip from Fateh in fighting in June 2007. Fateh holds sway in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

The diplomat, speaking on condition neither he nor the country he represents be identified, said the Arab League, enlisted by main mediator Egypt to try to heal the Fateh-Hamas rift, could lose interest if no deal was reached next week.

“If Cairo’s efforts fail because Palestinian factions did not want to end their divisions, the Palestinians could be left alone for years,” the diplomat said.

Hamas leaders in the Gaza Strip planned to meet Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman, who is steering the reconciliation effort, in Cairo on Tuesday.

Senior Gaza Hamas leader Mahmoud Al Zahar told reporters before he crossed into Egypt the visit aimed to “hammer out the obstacles” before the broad talks next Monday.

An Egyptian paper aimed at ending the Palestinian divisions calls on all factions to recognise the Palestine Liberation Organisation, headed by Fateh leader and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, as the supreme Palestinian authority.

Abbas was elected president of the Palestinian Authority in 2005, but Hamas defeated his Fateh movement a year later in a general election.

Hamas and the less influential Islamic Jihad, which both opposed Abbas’ peace talks with Israel, have said they will not recognise the PLO until it has been restructured and they are included in the organisation.

Another key issue is Fateh’s insistence that any future unity government with Hamas recognises existing interim peace accords with Israel.

Hamas, as part of a unity deal, wants to restructure the security services throughout the Palestinian territories, including the West Bank where they are dominated by Fateh.

Israel and the United States, along with some Arab countries, oppose Hamas’ participation in the Palestinian security forces, especially in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

EU invitation

A European parliamentary delegation visited the Gaza Strip on Monday and invited all elected Palestinian lawmakers, including Hamas, to visit, even though the EU considers the Islamist group a terrorist organisation.

The invitation appeared to be little more than a symbolic gesture since Israel has jailed some 40 of Hamas’ lawmakers and allows few Gazans to leave the coastal territory.

Like the United States, the European Union considers Hamas a terrorist organisation and boycotts the group, which won parliamentary elections in 2006, because of its refusal to renounce violence and recognise Israel.

The invitation to visit the European parliament next spring was presented by Kyriacos Triantaphyllides, head of the European delegation, during talks with Ahmed Bahar, acting speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) and a Hamas member.

“We don’t care who they are as long as they are members of the Legislative Council,” Triantaphyllides told Reuters. “We don’t ask if they are members of Hamas or members of Fateh.”

“The PLC was elected in 2006 and it was democratically elected,” he added.