Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal will visit Cairo and is expected to answer an Egyptian proposal for a prisoner exchange deal between Israel and the Palestinians, a senior Egyptian official said on Sunday.
The official, who asked not to be named, said Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman had presented the group's leader with the latest version of the proposal earlier this month during his visit to Damascus, where Meshaal is based.
"He (Meshaal) said: 'I will bring an answer when I come to Cairo'," the official told Reuters. Presidential spokesman Suleiman Awad said Egypt has invited Meshaal but did not say when the visit would take place.
Palestinian resistance fighters from Gaza captured an Israeli soldier on June 25 and have offered to release him in return for many hundreds of Palestinians held in Israeli jails.
Soon after the capture of Corporal Gilad Shalit, Egypt tried to arrange an exchange, with a time lag between the release of Shalit and that of the Palestinians, Palestinian sources said.
The governing group Hamas, whose armed wing took part in the cross-border operation to capture the soldier, rejected that offer, saying the releases should be simultaneous.
One of three Palestinian groups holding Shalit in the Gaza Strip said on Saturday it expected a solution to the crisis within days based on an Egyptian proposal, though it said the a deal still depended on Israel.
Officials from Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, however, were less optimistic that an agreement was imminent.
Asked what was new in the latest Egyptian proposal, the Egyptian official said: "It's only about the number of (Palestinian) prisoners being released."
There was no comment from Hamas officials.
Awad said that during Meshaal's visit, Egypt would press its attempt to bring about agreement on a Palestinian government of national unity between Hamas and the secular nationalist Fatah group, headed by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
Talks on a coalition collapsed because the two rivals could not agree on terms that might have led to an easing of a Western aid embargo, which is designed to push Hamas to recognise Israel, renounce violence and accept past accords.
European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana said on Sunday he hoped for news on a government of Palestinian technocrats within days.
"The negotiations have to continue, the conversation has to continue ... I hope very much ... in a few days we will have news about the possibility of that initiative," he said after meeting Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. He did not elaborate.