"Turkey’s prime minister on Sunday welcomed efforts toward reconciliation between the rival Palestinian factions during a meeting with the Hamas premier of the Gaza Strip, Turkey’s state-run news agency reported.
Turkey is trying to help efforts toward a reconciliation between the rival Palestinian Hamas and Fatah factions.
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Related: Israeli, Palestinian negotiators to meet in Jordan
Also see: As Turkey Turns
"Gaza’s Hamas leader visits aid flotilla ship" by Associated Press, January 03, 2012
ISTANBUL - The Hamas prime minister of the Gaza Strip has visited a ship docked in Turkey that in 2010 was the target of a deadly raid by Israeli troops seeking to prevent an aid flotilla reaching the Palestinian territory.
The visit yesterday by Ismail Haniyeh was a show of solidarity with the Islamic aid group IHH, which had planned to send the Mavi Marmara vessel with another Gaza flotilla last year but then dropped the plan.
On the Istanbul dock, Haniyeh denounced the Israeli blockade of Gaza. Israel has lifted restrictions on consumer goods, though it kept a ban on materials like cement and metals that it says could be used by Hamas to build fortifications or aid attacks on Israel.
Haniyeh is on a tour of the Muslim world, his first trip outside the blockaded territory since Hamas took over Gaza in 2007....
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