CAIRO: Jimmy Carter met with a Hamas delegation from the Gaza Strip in Cairo on Thursday after Israel barred the former US president from visiting the Palestinian territory.
The delegation, which includes leaders Mahmoud Zahar and Said Siam and four others, went into a meeting with Carter at a Cairo hotel, an AFP correspondent reported, amid heavy security.
Ahead of the meeting, Hamas coordinator in Cairo Ibrahim Al-Darrawy said that Carter, who has been snubbed by Israel and criticized by the US administration for wanting to meet Hamas, is well disposed and we need that.
Carter had lunch with President Hosni Mubarak before meeting with Hamas amid ongoing Egyptian efforts to broker a truce between the Islamists and Israel.
The chances of such a truce emerging have been reduced by unrest in the Gaza Strip where violence on Wednesday killed 21 Palestinians, including a cameraman for an international news agency, and three Israeli soldiers.
The Hamas delegation, which drove to Cairo from the Rafah border crossing on Wednesday, will inform Carter about the situation in the Gaza Strip and tell him that Hamas is a national liberation movement, Darrawy told AFP.
Read Daily New Egypt’s weekend edition (April19-20) for a full report on the talk Carter gave at the American University in Cairo on Thursday, April 17.
