Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas Tuesday for condemning the alleged kidnapping of three teenagers by Hamas, but slammed his unity pact with the Islamist movement.

"I appreciate what president Abbas said a few days ago in Saudi Arabia, rejecting the kidnapping," Netanyahu told his Romanian counterpart Victor Ponta at a meeting in Jerusalem.

Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal has denied having information about three Israeli teenagers thought to have been kidnapped by the Islamist movement in the West Bank, in an interview aired Tuesday.

"Frankly, we do not have information about what happened," the exiled head of Hamas' politburo told Doha-based Al-Jazeera television.

Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas held "positive" talks with Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal in Doha Monday in the first meeting since their rival movements signed a surprise unity deal last month.

The meeting began at 0900 GMT shortly after Abbas held talks with Qatari emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, a senior Palestinian official told Agence France Presse in Ramallah.

Senior leaders of the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas will meet on Tuesday in Ankara with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a diplomatic source told Agence France Presse.

The group's exiled leader Khaled Meshaal, along with Gaza's prime minister Ismail Haniya, will discuss Erdogan's planned visit to the Gaza Strip as well as the situation in Syria, the source said on condition of anonymity.

The newly reelected chief of the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, Khaled Meshaal, pledged on Thursday to work to end a rift with his West Bank rival, Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas.

Meshaal, speaking at a pro-Palestinian conference in Cairo, "affirmed his movement's solicitude for ending the division with its negative effects," the Palestinian Safa news agency quoted his as saying.

Khaled Meshaal's reelection as leader of Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, provides a chance for the Islamist group to improve ties with the international community, analysts say.

The veteran leader was chosen Monday to serve another four-year term despite indications he might be forced aside by the movement's powerful and more radical leadership in Gaza.

Hamas re-elected its veteran leader Khaled Meshaal in Cairo on Monday, an official of the Palestinian Islamist movement said.

"The leaders of Hamas chose Meshaal," the high-ranking official told Agence France Presse via telephone from the Egyptian capital, requesting anonymity.

Exiled Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal said on Monday the world "must respect" Palestinian reconciliation talks, after meeting King Abdullah II in Jordan, a palace statement said.

"I am optimistic about the Palestinian reconciliation. The international community must respect Palestinian need to end division," Meshaal was quoted as saying after meeting the king in Amman.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday said Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's latest reconciliation talks with exiled Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal are not the act of a man seeking peace with Israel.

"Abu Mazen (Abbas) gave an embrace to the head of a terror organization who only a month ago stated that Israel should be wiped from the map," a statement from Netanyahu's office quoted him as saying.

Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas and exiled Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal have agreed to expedite a stalled reconciliation deal between the rival factions, a Hamas official said Thursday.

The decision came at a meeting in Cairo that was the first in almost a year between the West Bank's Fatah leader Abbas and Meshaal, who heads the Hamas movement that rules the Gaza Strip, and was aimed at ending years of bitter and sometimes deadly rivalry.