Damascus/Gaza City - Defying Washington's objections, former
US president Jimmy Carter Friday held talks with Hamas' senior leader
Khaled Mashaal in Damascus, with discussions of a Gaza ceasefire and
Israel's blockade on the Gaza Strip.
According to a Hamas website monitored in the Gaza Strip, Carter
and Mashaal also were to discuss the fate of the abducted Israeli
soldier Gilad Shalit.
The report cited Mashaal's deputy, Musa Abu Mrazoque, who talked
to reporters in Syria. Mashaal is the senior leader of the
Palestinian Islamic movement Hamas.
Earlier, Carter met with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
The US Bush administration said earlier this week it opposes
Carters' plan to meet with the Hamas leader. Washington lists Hamas
as a terrorist organization and refuses to hold discussions with the
militant group in the peace process.
Israel also regards Hamas as a terrorist group that has launched
repeated rocket attacks into Israel.
Earlier, Palestinian sources close to Hamas said the issue of
abducted Israeli soldier Shalit and suggestions to lift the
Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip were the kernel of the Carter-
Mashaal meeting.
Carter was to have met with Mashaal in his house in Damascus, and
no media coverage was to be allowed during the Carter-Mashaal talks.
A Carter delegation spokesman told dpa that the former US
president will not announce the results of his meetings before next
Monday.
In June 2006, Hamas captured Shalit during an attack on an Israeli
army location near the border with Egypt.
Despite intense efforts to release him, Shalit has been held by
Hamas for more than one year.
After finishing his one-day trip in Syria, Carter is heading to
Saudi Arabia to meet King Abdullah and the Saudi foreign minister.
The White House has dismissed any connection to the meetings,
saying that Carter 'is not representing the United States' in the
meeting.
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