Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani held talks on Tuesday with Qatar's emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, on the second-day of an official visit expected to focus on Afghan peace efforts.

Gilani arrived in Doha Monday on a three-day trip that will also address bilateral relations between the two nations, according to official statements.

The deal signed in Doha by rival Palestinian movements Fatah and Hamas has moved the two sides closer to reconciliation but challenges remain, officials and experts warn.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who also heads Fatah, and Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal signed an accord on Monday placing Abbas at the head of an interim consensus government to supervise the run-up to elections later this year.

Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani left for Qatar on Monday to discuss Afghan peace efforts in the ultra-rich Gulf state where the Taliban and U.S. officials have begun preliminary contacts.

"The prime minister reiterated stance of his government to support Afghan-led and Afghan-owned initiatives for a stable Afghanistan," his office quoted him as saying before his departure.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal began talks in the Qatari capital Sunday on the formation of an interim Palestinian government and staging of elections, an official said.

The meeting was to explore the formation of "an interim government composed of independents to oversee the preparations for upcoming presidential and legislative elections," the Palestinian official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal will meet on Sunday in Qatar, Fatah party spokesman Azzam al-Ahmed told Agence France Presse on Friday.

Abbas and Meshaal "will discuss forming a government and political questions after the failure of talks" with Israel, Ahmed said.

The Taliban militia leading a 10-year insurgency in Afghanistan on Wednesday denied that they would soon hold talks with Afghan President Hamid Karzai's government in Saudi Arabia.

"There is no truth in these published reports saying that the delegation of the Islamic Emirate would meet with representatives of the Karzai government in Saudi Arabia in the near future," the Taliban said on their website.

Qatar's prime minister, speaking on behalf of the Arab League, urged the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday to take action to stop Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's "killing machine."

Opening a top-level Security Council meeting on the Syrian crisis, Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem al-Thani said that the Arab League had tried to seek a solution with Assad in face of the 10-month uprising.

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.

Taliban negotiators have begun meeting with U.S. officials in Qatar, where they are discussing preliminary trust-building measures aimed at ending the war in Afghanistan, The New York Times reported Sunday.

Citing several former Taliban officials, the newspaper said these measures included a possible prisoner transfer.

European and Arab U.N. members on Saturday started rewriting a proposed Security Council resolution condemning Syria's deadly crackdown on dissent after the Arab League suspended its monitoring mission in Syria.

European countries said the withdrawal highlighted the need for U.N. action. France's foreign minister contacted his Russia counterpart in a bid to overcome Moscow's resistance to the draft resolution officially presented on Friday, diplomats said.