Former US president Jimmy Carter said on Monday the Hamas movement told him it would recognise Israel's right to live in peace if a deal is reached and approved by a Palestinian vote.
Carter made the comments following two meetings in Damascus with exiled Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal that angered Israel and the United States, which consider the movement a terror group despite its victory in 2006 elections.
"They said that they would accept a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders if approved by Palestinians and that they would accept the right of Israel to live as a neighbour, next door, in peace," Carter told the Israeli Council on Foreign Relations think-tank.
Hamas would agree to such a peace deal, yet to be negotiated, provided it is "submitted to Palestinians for their overall approval even though Hamas might disagree with some terms of the agreement," Carter said in Jerusalem.
It was unclear whether Hamas would require the referendum to include Palestinian refugees living outside the West Bank and Gaza but Carter said the group would also accept an agreement negotiated by a unity government made up of Hamas and the Fatah movement of moderate Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas.
While in the Middle East Carter met with senior Hamas leaders from the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and Syria, but was unable to secure a cease-fire or a prisoner exchange for an Israeli soldier seized by Gaza militants in 2006.
Carter insisted no progress had been made in US-sponsored peace talks since they were restarted in November, with Palestinians increasingly angry over the continued expansion of Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank.
The United States has criticised Carter's decision to meet with Hamas and played down the message he conveyed. "It seems to me that what Hamas needs to do is pretty clear. Renounce violence would be a good step towards showing you actually want peace," US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told reporters in Manama.
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