Palestinians Abbas and Meshaal meeting back on

DAMASCUS, Jan 21 (Reuters) - Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal will meet in Damascus today to try to ease the Palestinian political crisis, aides to the two politicians said.

''The meeting between Abu Mazen (Abbas) and Abu al-Waleed (Meshaal) will take place tonight,'' senior Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat told reporters after Abbas met Syrian Vice-President Farouq al-Shara. ''Our message is forbidding infighting, stopping instigation and the formation of a national unity government.'' Izzat al-Rishq, a senior Hamas official, told Reuters the group does not expect the meeting to result in an agreement on a unity government.

''The main difference on the government's manifesto persists.

The meeting will convene to affirm that the two sides are committed to continue dialogue and reject the use of violence and spilling of Palestinian blood,'' Rishq said.

A meeting scheduled for late night was postponed after officials failed to reconcile differences over the new government and how it would deal with Western demands.

But Shara held separate talks with Abbas and Meshaal today in a last ditch effort to get the two men to meet. Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem attended the meetings.

''We are seeing Syrian efforts at the highest level to convene this meeting,'' al-Rishq said earlier. ''Syrian officials are doing their best to bring the views of both sides closer.'' POWER STRUGGLE A power struggle between Hamas and Abbas's Fatah faction has led to violence in Gaza and the West Bank after talks on forming a unity government broke down late last year and Abbas called for fresh elections.

Hamas officials yesterday said the two politicians would discuss whom to appoint to the ministries of the interior, finance and foreign affairs in a proposed unity government.

They also said talks between Abbas aides and Hamas officials in the past few days had reached an understanding that Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas would lead the next government.

A senior Palestinian official in Gaza today said Hamas had agreed to give up the interior ministry to an independent personality, and that the finance ministry would go to Salam Fayyad, an independent.

''The discussions are now focused on whether Hamas will use the word 'respect' agreements between the PLO and Israel or 'will be committed to' agreements,'' the official, who asked not to be identified, said before Erekat's announcement.

Abbas arrived in Damascus yesterday and met Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who has close ties with Meshaal and allows the Hamas exiled leadership to live in Syria.

REUTERS DKA VC1935