Abbas phones PM Haniyeh in sign of easing tension
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas telephoned Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas on Thursday in a sign of rapprochement between the two men as the Islamist premier set off on a tour of Arab countries. It was their first phone conversation since Abbas’s December 16 appeal for new elections, which Hamas described as a coup attempt against its elected government and which set off a round of bloody clashes. Full Story