“We wish that Hamas be represented within (a government) of national unity and that this government takes a unified stance towards accomplishing peace,” he told reporters after meeting his Czech counterpart Vaclav Klaus during a visit to Prague.

A government that would marry the two rival factions should ”respect all agreements and commitments” made so far in peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians, such as honouring a two-state solution, Abbas said.

Hamas, which does not recognize Israel, violently ousted Abbas’s Western-backed, secular Fatah movement from the Gaza Strip in the summer of 2007, confining it to the West Bank.

However, Hamas and Fatah have recently showed the will to make up. They are set to try to bridge their differences in two-day talks starting in Cairo on Wednesday.

It is the first meeting since November when Hamas walked out of negotiations brokered by Egypt, demanding that Fatah first stops arresting Hamas members.

The factions also set up five committees on forming a national- unity government that should convene in Cairo on Saturday.

The outcome of these latest reconciliation efforts may be again influenced by the fate of Hamas prisoners jailed by Fatah.

Abbas also reiterated his call on Israel to stick to the existing peace obligations, including a halt to settlement expansion, in which he was backed by the European Union on Friday.

Speaking through an interpreter, he discouraged both Palestinian and Israeli leaders from returning the negotiations to the beginning.

Abbas, however, would not say whether the EU should directly talk to Hamas, which the 27-member bloc considers a terrorist organization.

Klaus, who has a ceremonial role in the Czech Republic’s current EU presidency, said that the union should not meddle in internal Palestinian affairs.