Former US president Jimmy Carter has said Hamas told him it would recognise Israel's right to live in peace if a deal is reached and approved by a Palestinian vote.
Mr Carter made the comments following two meetings in Damascus with exiled Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal. The meetings angered Israel and the US, which consider the movement a terror group despite its victory in 2006 elections.
‘They said that they would accept a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders if approved by Palestinians and that they would accept the right of Israel to live as a neighbour, next door, in peace,’ Mr Carter told the Israeli Council on Foreign Relations think-tank.
Hamas would agree to such a peace deal, yet to be negotiated, provided it is ‘submitted to Palestinians for their overall approval even though Hamas might disagree with some terms of the agreement,’ Mr Carter said in Jerusalem.
It was unclear whether Hamas would require the referendum to include Palestinian refugees living outside the West Bank and Gaza but Mr Carter said the group would also accept an agreement negotiated by a unity government made up of Hamas and the Fatah movement of moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
‘The alternative that we included was if there can be another free election to form a government that involves Hamas and Fatah, that government could approve the peace agreement,’ Mr Carter said after the conference.
But Mr Carter stressed no progress had been made in US-sponsored peace talks since they were restarted in November, with Palestinians increasingly angry over the continued expansion of Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank.
Mr Carter said Hamas rejected his proposal for a unilateral, 30-day ceasefire, saying ‘they couldn't trust Israel to follow up by lessening attacks on Gaza and in the West Bank.’
Mr Carter said he was ‘not in any role to get that reciprocal agreement because I can't talk to Israeli officials’.
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and other Israeli leaders have refused to meet with Mr Carter.
Hamas seized control of Gaza in June last year after ousting forces loyal to President Abbas. Since then Israel has carried out near-daily raids on the coastal area as Palestinian militants have launched rockets at southern Israel.
The former US president today finished his nine-day trip to the Middle East, which also took him to the West Bank, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Jordan.
