DUBAI • Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said in remarks aired yesterday he would welcome any push for rapprochement with Islamist group Hamas if it relinquishes control over the Gaza Strip.

“Any side that wants to play a role is welcome ... be it our Russian friends or Arab brothers,” Abbas told al Arabiya television in an interview in Moscow during a visit.

“But, we say if we were to start a dialogue with Hamas for fence-mending they have to end all of the causes and outcome of the coup measures which they took against the legitimate authority,” he said. The context of his remarks was not clear from the excerpts broadcast by Arabiya.

On June 14 Hamas militias routed Gaza forces loyal to the Western-backed, secular Fatah faction of Abbas, who later dismissed the Hamas-led cabinet and formed a new government in the West Bank.

Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad has said Palestinians have a legitimate right to resist Israeli occupation, even if the phrase does not appear in his new government programme.

“We are certainly an occupied people and resistance is a legitimate right for the Palestinian people as an occupied people,” Fayyad told reporters in Cairo, where he is leading the Palestinian delegation to an Arab League meeting yesterday.

Palestinian officials confirmed on Friday that the platform of the new government omits the phrases “armed struggle” and “resistance” against Israeli occupation.

This was a change from the platforms of the previous two Palestinian governments led by Hamas, which has rebuffed US and European demands that it recognise Israel and renounce violence.

Another 313 Palestinians of the thousands stranded in Egypt crossed into Israel on their way to Gaza yesterday, while Israeli authorities have approved the entry of another 1,000.

“Israel has agreed to allow an additional 1,000 Palestinians in Egypt to cross,” Hani Jabbour, a Palestinian security coordinator on the Egyptian side of the divided border town of Rafah, told reporters.