DAMASCUS (Agencies)
Former U.S. president Jimmy Carter met exiled Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal in the Syrian capital on Friday despite strong opposition from Israel and the White House.
The controversial meeting, which was also attended by top Islamist leaders Moussa Abu Marzuq and Mohmmed Nazzal, lasted more than four hours, an AFP correspondent outside the talks venue said.
Carter made no comment after the meeting but Abu Marzuq said beforehand that the talks would focus on the fate of Corporal Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier captured by Hamas and other Palestinian militants in June 2006.
"They will also hold talks on a truce (with Israel) and ending the sanctions on the Palestinian people," he told AFP.
Carter, who is on a regional tour to promote Middle East peace, earlier met Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
State news agency SANA later said they discussed the peace process and relations between the two countries.
The two men expressed "their support for dialogue in arriving at political solutions to problems" and considered it important to "mobilize efforts to reduce the suffering of the Palestinians and to lift the (Israeli) blockade" on the Gaza Strip. |
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Gaza blockade a crime Earlier Carter insisted Washington’s attempts to undermine Hamas had been counterproductive and called the blockade of Gaza a crime and an atrocity.
"It's an atrocity what is being perpetrated as punishment on the people in Gaza. it's a crime... I think it is an abomination that this continues to go on," Carter said.
Speaking at the American University in Cairo after talks with Hamas leaders Mahmoud Zahar and Issam Siam, Carter said Palestinians in Gaza were being "starved to death", receiving fewer calories a day than people in the poorest parts of Africa. |
Nobel Peace Prize winner Carter, the architect of the 1979 Egypt-Israel peace treaty, met a delegation from Hamas including former Foreign Minister Zahar and former Interior Minister Siam amid tight security at a Cairo hotel.
Carter said Israel and its ally the United States were trying to make the quality of life in Gaza markedly worse than in the West Bank, where the rival Fatah group is in control.
"I think politically speaking this has worked even to strengthen the popularity of Hamas and to the detriment of the popularity of Fatah," he added. The United States has been trying to achieve the opposite outcome.
Israel and the United States say they refuse to deal with Hamas as long as the Islamist movement does not recognize Israel's right to exist and renounce violence.
But Carter said Hamas, which won Palestinian parliamentary elections in 2006, had to be involved in any arrangements that could lead to peace.
"One of the reasons I wanted to come and meet with the Syrians and Hamas was to set an example that might be emulated by others... I know that there are some officials in the Israeli government that are quite willing to meet with Hamas and maybe that will happen in the near future," he added.
Carter on Sunday began a nine-day tour of the region to promote the Middle East peace process. He said Israel denied him permission to travel to Gaza, where Israel sealed its borders after Hamas took control of the territory.
Washington has said the former president is acting in a personal capacity. After Syria, Carter is due to travel to Jordan and Saudi Arabia. |
