Islamic Hamas movement on Tuesday said that national reconciliation should be implemented as a package.

"The reconciliation should not be limited to preparations for elections," said Khalil Al-Hayya, a senior Hamas official in Gaza.

He stressed that progress on the issue of freedom should be made in parallel to progress on elections.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah party wants Hamas to allow the Central Elections Commission (CEC) to start working in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.

But Al-Hayya said that Palestinian people, especially Hamas supporters in the Fatah-ruled West Bank, should feel the fruits of progress on the freedom issue.

In the West Bank, Al-Hayya said, Hamas supporters "still suffer from pro-Abbas forces," while the money of Hamas is still "in the pockets" of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA).

"The reconciliation leads to elections, not vice versa," Al- Hayya told Xinhua. "There are outstanding issues that must end. Hamas is being chased down in the West Bank and this must end."

The debate about elections and reconciliation comes nearly a month after Abbas and Hamas' chief Khaled Mashaal signed a new reconciliation deal. The deal, brokered under Qatari auspices, authorizes Abbas to form an interim government to prepare for general and presidential elections though no date was fixed for the polls.

The pact supports a more comprehensive agreement Egypt brokered last year to reconcile Hamas and Fatah.

On Saturday, Abbas linked the formation of the government with progress on the work of the CEC in Gaza.

Al-Hayya said that Abbas and Mashaal agreed to postpone discussions to form the government when they met on Feb. 23 in Cairo. Earlier Tuesday, a Fatah official said that Hamas had asked Abbas to wait for two weeks before starting discussions for selecting members of the interim government.