Hamas supremo Khaled Meshaal said a planned US conference aimed at kick starting peacemaking in the Middle East was doomed to failure, in an interview with CNN television broadcast on Monday. "I think that this conference will fail for many reasons," said Meshaal, who tops Israel's most wanted list and now lives in exile in the Syrian capital.
"There is no doubt that the outcome will be leaning towards Israel's best interest because (Israeli Prime Minister Ehud) Olmert is the stronger side in the negotiations," he said, according to CNN's translation of his remarks in Arabic.
Meshaal said the conference, which was called by US President George W. Bush and is expected to take place in November, was not an international meeting but an American one and charged that it would exclude "key players in the region".
The gathering, he said, was being "controlled and directed" by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and "lacks seriousness from both the Americans and the Israelis."
"The American administration is fighting Hamas and working on isolating it," Meshaal said, adding that he believed the United States would eventually have to deal with his group. He called on the international community to deal with the "reality of the Palestinian arena," saying this would "lead to genuine peace in the region, and the waterfall of blood will stop."