GAZA CITY, Feb 7 (AFP): The militant Palestinian Islamist group Hamas plans to formally ask its political rival Fatah to join a new government following its shock election win last month, an official said. "We are going to sit down with them and officially propose that they take part in the government," senior Hamas official Ismail Haniya said after talks in Cairo late Monday. "We are awaiting the official response from the Fatah leadership," Haniya was quoted as saying by the news agency MENA after a meeting with Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman. After their crushing defeat, leaders of the long-dominant Fatah movement of Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas ruled out joining a coalition with Hamas, whose election victory triggered alarm in Israel and the West. "Hamas has not so far asked us to join a government," said Nabil Shaath, a Fatah central committee member and outgoing deputy prime minister. "But if they do ask us, they must present their political programme and all the details about their government and and then we will discuss this issue among the Fatah leadership," he told AFP.
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