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Mideast Peace Breakthrough?
Carter Claims Hamas Ready
For Peace With Israel
Has
President Carter Scored
A Diplomatic Breakthrough?
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Reuter's News Wire Reports
Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter said on Monday Hamas
leaders told him they would accept a peace agreement negotiated by their
rival, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, if Palestinians approved the deal
in a vote.
"They said they would accept a Palestinian state on the
1967 borders if approved by Palestinians ... even though Hamas might disagree
with some terms of the agreement," Carter said in a speech, after talks
in Syria and Egypt
with Hamas leaders.
"It means that Hamas will not undermine Abbas's efforts
to negotiate an agreement and Hamas will accept an agreement if the
Palestinians support it in a free vote," he said.
Hamas said after it violently took control of the Gaza Strip in June from Abbas's Fatah faction --
prompting him to sack a Hamas-led government -- that he was not authorised to
talk peace with Israel
on behalf of the Palestinians.
Carter and Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal discussed in Damascus on Friday and Saturday how the Islamist group,
shunned by Israel
and the West, could be drawn into a peace plan and drop its opposition to
Abbas's negotiations with the Jewish state.
Carter said that excluding Hamas "is just not
working", citing on-going violence along Israel's
border with the Gaza
Strip.
Hamas has rejected Western calls to recognise Israel, renounce
violence and accept existing interim Israeli-Palestinian peace deals.
Carter said that Hamas turned down his proposal for a 30-day
unilateral ceasefire with Israel.
He said Hamas did not trust Israel
to respond to such a truce. For more details, LINK HERE.
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CBS News Coverage
Carter Breakthrough?
Former President Jimmy Carter on Monday said Hamas is prepared to accept the
right of Israel
to "live as a neighbor next door in peace".
His comments came after he met last week with the top Hamas
leaders in Syria.
Carter also said Hamas won't undermine Palestinian
President Mahmoud Abbas' efforts to reach a peace deal with Israel. He said Hamas is ready to
accept a Palestinian state made of the West Bank and Gaza. More details, LINK HERE.
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Al Jazeera On Carter News
Jimmy Carter, the former US president, has said Hamas, which governs the Gaza
Strip, is prepared to accept the right of Israel to "live as a neighbour
next door in peace".
Carter said in Jerusalem
on Monday that Hamas leaders told him they would accept a negotiated peace
agreement if voted for by the Palestinian people.
His comments come after he met several Hamas leaders, including Khaled Meshaal,
the exiled Hamas politico, in Syria
last week.
Carter said Hamas leaders had told him they would accept a peace agreement
negotiated by their rival Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president whose
Fatah faction controls the West Bank, if Palestinians approved the deal in a
vote.
Peacemaking
"They said they would accept a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders if
approved by Palestinians ... even though Hamas might disagree with some terms
of the agreement," Carter said.
"It means that Hamas will not undermine Abbas's efforts to negotiate an
agreement and Hamas will accept an agreement if the Palestinians support it
in a free vote."
Carter, who has angered Israel by meeting Hamas, also said the peace efforts
had "regressed" since a US-hosted conference in Annapolis, Maryland,
in November.
He said: "The problem is not that I met with with Hamas in Syria.
The problem is that Israel
and the United States
refuse to meet with someone who must be involved."
In his speech to the Israel
Council on Foreign Relations at the King David hotel in Jerusalem,
Carter reiterated that he has no mandate to secure a peace deal between Israel and Palestine.
Al Jazeera's Mike Hanna, reporting from Damascus, said that
Hamas had expressed willingness to go along with Carter's proposals.
"However, also from the Hamas side, the point being
made that something must come in return," he said.
"What Jimmy Carter is trying to do is to break the ice
- trying to get some sort of momentum going in a situation that has been
utterly static."
Hamas officials said they talked with Carter about an internationally backed
Israeli embargo on Gaza
and a possible Israel-Hamas prisoner swap.
But Hamas did not respond to Carter's requests that it halt rocket fire on
Israeli border towns and agree to talk to Eli Yishak, the Israeli deputy
prime minister, about a prisoner exchange.
Over the weekend, Israel
killed seven Hamas fighters in a series of air strikes after the group
detonated two jeeps packed with explosives at an Israeli crossing on the Gaza border.
Israel and the US, which both consider Hamas a terrorist group, have
criticised Carter's efforts to broker negotiations.
Jordan meeting
Carter briefed King Abdullah II of Jordan on Sunday on his meetings
with Hamas and on the Palestinian-Israeli peace process.
Officials said that Abdullah focused on talks between
Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, and Ehud Olmert, the Israeli prime
minister, rather than on any of Carter's meetings.
A Royal Palace statement said Abdullah
discussed with Carter ways to help "Palestinians and Israelis continue
their negotiations on final status issues leading to the establishment of an
independent Palestinian state".
Relations between Hamas and Jordan are frosty.
Jordan
has accused Hamas of stockpiling and concealing weapons in the kingdom with
the intention of using them to destabilise the pro-Western government. LINK
HERE.
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