Carter Says Hamas Open
to Peace Deal
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Tara Todras-Whitehill/Associated
Press
Former President Jimmy
Carter spoke at the Israeli Council of Foreign Relations in Jerusalem on Monday.
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By REUTERS from
nytimes.com on the Web, April 21, 2008
DAMASCUS -- The Islamist Hamas
group said on Monday it would accept the establishment of a Palestinian state on
land occupied by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war, but it was not prepared to
recognize the Jewish state.
Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal, in an apparent softening of the group's position,
was confirming an account of his remarks given by former U.S. president Jimmy
Carter after two meetings in Damascus over the weekend.
"We accept a state on the June 4 line with Jerusalem as capital, real
sovereignty and full right of return for refugees but without recognizing
Israel," Meshaal told reporters, referring to the borders as they stood before
the 1967 war.
Meshaal, whom Carter seeks to draw into peace talks with Palestinian President
Mahmoud Abbas and Israel, said his Islamist group would "respect Palestinian
national will even if it was against our convictions."
In a speech in Jerusalem, Carter said Hamas leaders had told him they would
"accept a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders if approved by Palestinians." He
was referring to the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip and a referendum on a
deal Washington hopes to clinch this year.
"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.
But Carter said Meshaal, whom he met on Friday and Saturday and telephoned on
Monday over U.S. and Israeli objections, turned down his appeal for a unilateral
ceasefire with Israel to end violence threatening peace efforts.
"I did the best I could on that," Carter said of his failure to persuade Hamas
to halt rocket fire from the Gaza Strip it has controlled since it ousted
Abbas's secular Fatah movement.
Carter said his understandings with Hamas called for a referendum to be preceded
by reconciliation between the group and Abbas's Fatah faction. Hamas seized the
Gaza Strip from Fatah in June and Abbas has demanded the territory's return.
Gaza-based Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri said Palestinian refugees living in
exile must take part in a referendum -- a condition that could dim the chances
of approval since Israel opposes their mass return to what is now the Jewish
state.
"TRANSITIONAL"
Abu Zuhri also noted Hamas would see any future Palestinian state in the West
Bank and Gaza Strip as "transitional."
Speaking later to reporters, Carter said Hamas leaders whom he met "didn't say
anything about transitional."
Unlike Abbas, who sought a Palestinian state side-by-side with the Jewish state,
Abu Zuhri said Hamas's outstanding position not to recognize Israel's right to
exist remained unchanged despite its acceptance of a state in 1967 borders.
Carter, who helped negotiate a 1979 peace treaty between Israel and Egypt, said
excluding Hamas, which the United States, Israel and the European Union brand a
terrorist group, "is just not working."
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has refused to see Carter, who has been
critical of Israeli policy towards the Palestinians, during a regional visit
that began on April 13.
"We believe that the problem is not that I met Hamas in Syria," Carter said in
his address to the Israel Council on Foreign Relations. "The problem is that
Israel and the United States refuse to meet with these people, who must be
involved."
Israel pulled troops and settlers out of the Gaza Strip in 2005 but still
controls its borders and has tightened its restrictions on the enclave since
Hamas's takeover.
Carter said he proposed to Meshaal a rapid exchange of prisoners between Israel,
which is holding more than 11,000 Palestinians, and Hamas, which along with
other militant groups captured an Israeli soldier in 2006 on the Gaza border.
(Editing by Ralph Boulton)
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