Sana'a  - Yemen welcomed on Friday the call by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas for a national dialogue based on a Yemeni plan to end the inter-Palestinian dispute.

"Yemen has comfortably received the call by the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to hold a national dialogue," Yemeni Foreign Minister Abu-Bakr al-Qerbi said in remarks carried by official media.

US-backed Abbas on Wednesday called for talks with the Islamist Hamas movement, which ousted his Fatah movement from the Gaza Strip and took over the territory in June 2007 after deadly power struggle.

Al-Qerbi said the Yemeni initiative includes "clear steps to end the disintegration on the internal Palestinian arena."

Abbas' call included remarks seen as the first time he had hinted at possible direct talks with Hamas even before the Islamist group relinquishes its hold on the Gaza Strip - a condition he has always made for resuming dialogue.

Yemen presented an initiative earlier this year to end the conflict between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority (PA) that arose when Hamas used force to oust the Palestinian Authority from the Gaza Strip, leaving it in control only of the West Bank.

Fatah and Hamas accepted the Yemeni initiative and signed an agreement to that regard in the presence of the Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh in Sana'a last March.

Under the deal, the two factions agreed to return the political situation in the Palestinian territories to its original status before the June 2007 military takeover of the Gaza Strip by Hamas.

The two sides, however, disagreed later over the interpretation of the agreement.

While Fatah said the agreement means immediate implementation, starting with the first article that calls on Hamas to go back on its military takeover and return power in Gaza to the PA, Hamas said the agreement called for initiating dialogue to implement the agreement. (dpa)