Carter holds second meeting with Hamas chief
DAMASCUS (AFP) — Former US president Jimmy Carter and Khaled Meshaal, exiled chief of Hamas, held more talks in Syria on Saturday focused on a possible truce between Israel and Gaza militants and the release of an Israeli soldier, Hamas said.
The two men held a lengthy meeting on Friday, strongly opposed by Washington and Israel, who view Hamas as a terrorist organisation despite its victory in Palestinian elections in 2006.
Carter, on a Middle East trip to promote peace efforts amid continuing bloodshed, suggested to the Damascus-based Meshaal that his Islamist movement should make some goodwill gestures towards Israel.
The 2002 Nobel Peace prizewinner proposed a truce between Israel and Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, "an exchange of prisoners, which would include Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, the lifting of the Israeli blockade of the strip, and a solution to the Rafah terminal," Hamas official Mohammad Nazzal told AFP.
Nazzal said Hamas would respond to Carter "soon".
It would reply positively but "not at any price. The interests of the Palestinian people must be taken into account," he said.
The Rafah terminal, on the Egyptian border, is the only crossing into Gaza that skirts Israel. It has been closed almost permanently since June 2006 when Hamas forces ousted those of Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah party.
The Jewish state imposed a blockade on Gaza on January 17 in response to rockets fired from Gaza into Israel.
After the Friday meeting, Nazzal told reporters: "Carter suggested a truce and that Hamas should stop its rockets against Israel.
"We support a truce, but Israel should support it too," he said in reference to attempts to halt the bloodshed in Gaza, where 18 Palestinians and three Israeli soldiers were killed on Wednesday.
On Saturday, three Palestinian were killed and 12 Israeli soldiers wounded when Hamas militants attacked the Kerem Shalom border crossing at the southern end of the Gaza Strip. Two other Palestinians were killed by Israeli air strikes in the territory.
Following his second round of talks with Meshaal, the former US president traveled to Saudi Arabia, where he and King Abdullah discussed "matters of mutual interest," the official Spa news agency reported, without elaborating.
On Sunday, Carter is to travel to Jordan, the last leg of his tour.
