President Ali Abdullah Saleh announced on Saturday that the initiative that Yemen proposed for the Palestinian factions Hamas and Fatah received positive initial acceptance from both sides, hoping that the current initiative, if agreed upon, could bring to an end the strong differences between them.

This comes as Yemeni Foreign Affairs Minister Abu Bakr Al-Qirbi announced last week a new Yemeni initiative for resolving the Palestinian issues, enhance unity and do away with all differences among the different factions. The country called on Turkey, Syria and Egypt to sponsor its recent initiative aiming to bridge the differences rift between Hamas and Fatah Movements, especially after they had shown willingness to hold negotiations to discuss post-war requirements.

Al-Qirbi considered these steps to be the most important steps for regaining the strength of Palestinian people and stressed that unity is more important now than any time before especially after the recent violent Israeli attack on Gaza Strip.

He noted that reconciliation is the best path to unite the Palestinian struggle and bring the issue to wider spheres.

Early last year, Yemeni authorities presented a similar initiative to resolve the then tension between Fatah and Hamas. A round of meetings involving representatives of both factions was held in Sana'a; however, there were no positive results.

The initiative included forming a unity government and called Hamas to retract its coup in Gaza Strip and to have things as they were before Hamas took over it on June 13, 2007.

Built on the previous one, the new initiative focuses particularly on the resumption of dialogue between all Palestinian factions based on the Cairo Agreement of 2005 and Mecca Accord of 2007, together with adhering to the Palestinian legitimacy, respecting law and constitution and reestablishing the security apparatuses on national principles.

For his part, Hamas Movement Representative in Sana'a Jamal Isa welcomed the Yemeni proposals and told media sources that the initiative will be discussed in the upcoming weeks with the presence of Head of Hamas Movement Khalid Misha'al, who will be visiting Sana'a.

Other initiatives were proposed by other Arab countries including Saudi Arabia which prepared for a joint meeting involving Misha'al and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Mecca, but again the initiative never found its way to application.

During Kuwait summit, Gulf countries pledged billions of dollars (over $2 billion) to start post-war construction in Gaza and provide prompt aids to over 2 million citizens suffering serious shortage of food, medicine and other relief materials.