Abbas visits Damascus today to end tension, meets with Palestinian groups

A Palestinian delegation headed by the chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization PLO Mahmoud Abbas is to start a visit to Syria today. The first visit of its kind to Damascus since many years.

By this visit, the Palestinian leadership seeks to put an end to two decades of tension of relations between the two states and opening up a new page with Syria. Abbas is due to meet during this visit with several Palestinian leaderships that exist in Damascus.

The spokesman for the Islamic resistance forces in Gaza ( Hamas), Sami Abu Zahri, said that Abbas will be meeting with the chairman of the movement's political bureau Khaled Mashaal, and talks will be dealt with dialogue among the Palestinian groups and the joint leadership and a common formula for the PLO including all Palestinian groups.

From Damascus, the Palestinian delegation, which also includes the prime minister Ahmad Qurei and the foreign minister Nabil Shaath, will head to Beirut in a visit which is also the first of its kind at this level since years during which it will be meeting with the Lebanese leadership to discuss over all Lebanese- Palestinian relations and to concentrate in particular on conditions of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon.

Worthy mentioning that Syria, Lebanon and Kuwait are the three Arab states where there is still no official representation for the Palestinian national authority.

Moves of the new Palestinian leadership comes in the course of mobilizing Arab and international support for the elections due on January 9th and giving a new impetus for the stalemate peace process between the Palestinians and the Israelis following the death of Yasser Arafat.