Badran, who is in charge of Hamas' national affairs, made his remarks in a recorded speech delivered at a popular conference held on Thursday in the West Bank town of Bir Zeit according to Palestinian Information Center.

The Hamas official called on Fatah, the faction that controls the Palestinian Administration and PLO, to positively respond to the efforts being made to find a way out of the national crisis, which he said: "constitutes a threat to the Palestinian cause."

"We must achieve our national unity and rearrange and rebuild our political institutions as soon as possible, and Hamas is ready to engage in a trajectory for the reconciliation leading to a national and political partnership with no one being eliminated," Badran said.

He affirmed that Hamas is open to all thoughts and initiatives, including the one proposed by Father Manuel Musallam (a Palestinian Catholic priest) about the election of a national council.

He called for "necessarily preserving the PLO and working on strengthening it and restoring its prestige through allowing the Palestinians from all spectra to join it in order to reinforce its representative legitimacy nationally and internationally and make the national front more capable of confronting the occupation."

ILKHA