DAMASCUS: Former US President Jimmy Carter yesterday said that there can’t be peace between Israel and the Palestinians unless the Hamas resistance group is directly involved. Carter also said Hamas and the more moderate Fatah must reconcile so they can negotiate effectively with Israel.
He was speaking to reporters yesterday after meeting Syrian President Bashar Assad and ahead of talks with exiled Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal in Damascus. It’s to be Carter’s third meeting with Meshaal in the past year.
After his presidency, Carter continued to pursue Mideast peace through his Carter Center foundation. Carter’s trip to Syria comes just days before President Barack Obama’s special Mideast envoy is to visit Damascus. Carter met with Meshaal twice under the Bush administration, angering some in the US government who said he was legitimizing a group the US considers a terrorist organization.
But this was his first meeting under the Obama administration, which came as George Mitchell was less than 645 kilometers away in Cairo preparing to visit Syria today. Carter, who went to Syria after observing elections in neighboring Lebanon, stressed that he was in Damascus as a private citizen and not representing the Obama administration.
Obama, also a Democrat, seems to be going in the direction that Carter has long advocated - engagement with longtime foes Iran and Syria. So far Obama, like the Bush administration, has drawn the line at meeting with Hamas.
Speaking to reporters after meeting with Bashar and Foreign Minister Walid Muallem, Carter said he believed the new US administration could lift sanctions on Syria and upgrade ties by sending an ambassador to Damascus. “I think the United States will respond ... to any positive steps that Syria takes,” Carter told reporters.
“There’s no doubt on my mind that the American president wants to have full and cooperative relationships with Syria, and that involves the lifting of sanctions in the future and that also involves the appointment of an American ambassador to Damascus.”
Carter said he is also due to have talks with Israeli and Palestinian leaders on his peace mission. “I hope that we can see a rapid renewal of peace talks between Israel and Syria concerning the withdrawal of Israel of the Golan Heights,” he said, referring to the strategic plateau captured in war by Israel from Syria in 1967.
