Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal said Sunday that significant progress has been achieved in reconciliation talks with the rival Palestinian Fatah party.

"We achieved great strides towards achieving reconciliation", Mashaal said after meeting with Saudi officials in Riyadh. "We are in the final stages now."

Meshaal, however, said the movement still had some points to resolve in the Egyptian proposal.

An Egyptian proposal to promote reconciliation between Hamas and acting Palestinian Authority Chief Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah group called for presidential and legislative elections to be held in the West Bank and Gaza Strip next June.

"We all agree that the signing of the (reconciliation) will take place in Cairo," he said.

Hamas and Fatah have been at odds since Hamas came to power in the 2006 general elections. Differences between the two Palestinian groups reached its peak in June 2007 when Hamas took over the Gaza Strip in a bid to "foil a coup plot" by some Fatah elements.

Abbas in response sacked the Hamas government and set up a parallel cabinet in Ramallah.

(Press TV)