Hamas ready to accept Israel as neighbor – Carter

The FINANCIAL — JERUSALEM, Ex-U.S. president Jimmy Carter said on April 21 the radical Islamist group Hamas was ready to live in peace with Israel if an agreement was supported by a Palestinian referendum.

Carter, wildly criticized both by U.S. President George W. Bush and Israel's Prime Minister Ehud Olmert for meeting with Hamas leaders, which controls the Gaza Strip and is considered a terrorist organization both by the U.S. and Israel, said: "The problem is not that I met with Hamas in Syria. The problem is that Israel and the United States refuse to meet with someone who must be involved."

Carter said after the meeting with leaders from the Islamic movement, which included Hamas' Khaled Meshaal, in Syria: "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, who received the Nobel peace prize in 2002, also said: "Hamas will not undermine [Palestinian President Mahmoud] Abbas's efforts to negotiate an agreement and Hamas will accept an agreement if the Palestinians support it in a free vote."

Last November's U.S.-hosted Mideast summit saw a resumption of talks between the Palestinian National Authority and Israel after a seven-year hiatus. The sides pledged to do everything possible to draft a peace settlement by the end of 2008, as well as to come to an agreement on the form of a future independent Palestinian state.

However, the talks came to a halt last month following a devastating Israeli offensive on the Gaza Strip left 120 Palestinians dead. Abbas announced he would resume talks following a meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice at the end of March.

Although April 17 saw another surge in violence in Gaza with Israeli military strikes killing at least 20 Palestinians, mostly civilians, while three Israeli soldiers were killed in a Hamas ambush.

Moscow is due to host a Mideast peace conference, a follow-up to last November's talks in Annapolis, in June. The conference, which has received the backing of several Mideast states including Syria, is expected to bring major breakthroughs and strengthen Russia's role in resolving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.