Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman on Friday bluntly told the European Union's top diplomat that U.N. recognition of a Palestinian state in September would render the Oslo Accords null and void.

At a breakfast meeting with EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, Lieberman said the 1993 Oslo Accords that created the Palestinian Authority, and all the agreements reached since then, would be cancelled if they secured recognition of their independent state when the United Nations meets this autumn.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will meet Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal in Cairo next week to finalize a new government put together by the two factions, a top official of his Fatah movement said Tuesday.

The meeting was announced as Palestinian factions were in Cairo for reconciliation talks aimed at choosing a prime minister to head the unity government.

The central committee of the Fatah party led by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has voted to expel strongman Mohammed Dahlan, a Fatah official said on Sunday.

A committee member, speaking to Agence France Presse, said the movement was expelling Dahlan over allegations of corruption and murder, and recommending his case be referred to the attorney general.

Fatah will seek to keep current prime minister Salam Fayyad at the helm of a new government, an official said Sunday, but the nomination was immediately rejected by Hamas.

The central committee of Fatah, headed by president Mahmoud Abbas, agreed at a Saturday night meeting to throw their support behind Fayyad, a member of the committee told Agence France Presse.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has told France he is ready to attend a Paris peace conference if Israel accepts talks based on the 1967 borders, an aide told AFP on Sunday.

Nimr Hammad, a political advisor to Abbas, said the president had told French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe that he agreed officially to France's proposal to host a peace conference in Paris before the end of July.

Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas met Pope Benedict XVI on Friday amid heightened tensions across the Middle East and Vatican concern about the treatment of Christian minorities in the region.

This is the fourth time Benedict meets Abbas since becoming pope in 2005.

U.S. President Barack Obama said Wednesday the possible Palestinian drive for national recognition at the United Nations was a "mistake", in his most direct criticism yet of the campaign.

Obama also urged Israel and the Palestinians to make "wrenching compromise" for a peace deal after a week of acrimony left prospects of a final settlement more distant than ever.

Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas on Wednesday slammed a speech by Israel's prime minister and said the Palestinians would seek U.N. recognition if peace talks don't resume.

"Our first choice is negotiations, but if there is no progress before September we will go to the United Nations," Abbas said, criticizing a speech by Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu to the U.S. Congress on Tuesday.

Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas called an "urgent" leadership meeting Thursday to examine U.S. President Barack Obama's Middle East policy speech, an aide said.

But his tentative partners in the Islamist Hamas movement immediately called on Obama to take "concrete steps" not merely issue "slogans" in support of Palestinian independence and an end to Israeli occupation.

Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal buried the hatchet at a Cairo reconciliation ceremony on Wednesday that ends a nearly four-year feud but has angered Israel.

Palestinians gathered in both the West Bank and Gaza Strip to celebrate the long-awaited agreement to put an end to the rivalry between the administrations in the West Bank and Gaza, and restore the unity shattered by deadly infighting in June 2007.