Haniya Begins Regional Tour in Qatar

The head of the Hamas government in Gaza, Ismail Haniya, arrived in Qatar on Monday, beginning a regional tour that is also expected to take in Kuwait, Bahrain and Iran.

The official Qatari News Agency said Haniya's visit to the Gulf emirate will "last several days," while diplomats said he will leave Doha on Saturday, after leading the main weekly Muslim prayers at noon on Friday.

He will travel to Kuwait, then Bahrain and Iran, diplomats said.

Haniya's spokesman in Gaza, Taher al-Nounou, said Haniya was expected to meet the emir of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, on Tuesday after traveling on a special Qatari plane from El-Arish airport in Egypt's Sinai.

Haniya was traveling with his political adviser Youssef Rizq, his minister of housing and public works Youssef al-Mansi and two key Hamas members -- Yehia Sinwar and Rawhi Mushtaha -- released from Israeli prison last year under a deal that saw captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit freed.

During his visit to Qatar, Haniya is also expected to hold meetings with Crown Prince Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani and key Sunni religious figure Youssef al-Qaradawi, Nounou said.

The tour is Haniya's second since his Hamas movement swept 2006 Palestinian parliamentary elections and then ousted forces loyal to President Mahmoud Abbas from Gaza the following year.

On January 10, he returned to Gaza after a first trip that included stops in Egypt, Sudan, Turkey and Tunisia.

Before leaving Gaza, Haniya met the visiting chairman of the West Bank-based Central Election Committee for talks on updating the electoral register, which has not been updated since the 2006 polls that Hamas won.

A committee statement said its chairman, Hanna Nasser, thanked Haniya for allowing the body's Gaza office to reopen last week after a long period of restricted access since the Islamists seized the territory.

"Dr. Nasser expressed hope that the reopening of CEC offices will be the first step towards enabling the committee to carry out its legal mandate in the strip, starting with the registration of voters," it said.

It said that an estimated 220,000 new voters would be added to the register.

The CEC reopened its Gaza office last Wednesday but it is still waiting for a decree from the Palestinian president setting a date for long-delayed polls.

Under the terms of a reconciliation deal signed by Hamas and Abbas' secular Fatah movement last year, parliamentary and presidential elections are to be held by May.