Abbas urges Obama to 'speed up' Mideast peace process

Ramallah/Gaza City (Palestine), Nov 5 (DPA) Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas congratulated US president-elect Barack Obama Wednesday, and urged him to get involved in the Middle East peace process 'immediately'.

'President Abbas looks forward to working with the new US administration to speed up the work and push the peace process forward,' his spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeineh told the official Palestinian Wafa news agency from Budapest, where Abbas is visiting.

Abbas urged Obama to do it 'immediately so as to bring security and stability to the Middle East region,' he said.

The radical Islamic Hamas movement in control of Gaza, for its part, called on Obama to end the US and international boycott against it, saying it was ready to hold talks with the new US president.

'Obama should learn from the mistakes of his successor George Bush,' Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum told reporters in Gaza. 'We don't oppose holding dialogue with him.'