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Hamas will accept deal if...
21/04/2008 21:26 - (SA)
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 recognise 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 US 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 recognising 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' efforts to negotiate an agreement and Hamas will accept an agreement if the Palestinians support it in a free vote," he said.
Unilateral ceasefire appeal turned down
But Carter said Meshaal, whom he met on Friday and Saturday and telephoned on Monday over US 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.
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.
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 recognise 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 US, 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.
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