April 18, 2008	Friday	Rabi-us-Sani 11, 1429

CAIRO, April 17: Jimmy Carter met 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 Mahmud Zahar and Said Siam and four others, went into the meeting with Carter at a Cairo hotel amid heavy security, a correspondent reported.

Ahead of the talks, Hamas coordinator in Cairo Ibrahim al-Darrawy said that Carter, who has been snubbed by Israel and criticised by the US administration for wanting to meet Hamas, “is well disposed and we need that.” Carter had lunch with President Hosni Mubarak before the meeting amid ongoing Egyptian efforts to broker a truce between the Islamists and Israel.

The chances of such a truce hammering have been reduced by unrest in the Gaza Strip where violence on Wednesday killed 18 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 said.

On his arrival in Egypt, hardline Hamas leader Zahar hailed the upcoming talks.

“President Carter can break all the Israeli restraints that they want to place between him and Hamas and so we and our brothers in Damascus are determined to meet him,” he said.

The former president is expected to meet exiled Hamas political chief Khaled Meshaal in Damascus on Friday.

Zahar and Siam are considered hardline Hamas leaders who planned the violent takeover of Gaza from forces loyal to moderate Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas in June.—AFP