Hamas leader says ready to accept state on 1967 borders (Roundup)

Jun 16, 2009, 14:56 GMT

Gaza City - The militant Hamas movement, whose charter calls for the establishment of an Islamic state in all of historic Palestine, would be prepared to accept a state in the territories occupied by Israel in 1967, Hamas leader Ismail Haniya said Tuesday.

Haniya, who made the announcement at a joint news conference in Gaza City with visiting former US president Jimmy Carter, did not say whether this would only be as part of a long-term truce with Israel, as Hamas has previously proposed, or whether it meant Hamas was giving up on its demand for Palestinian sovereignty from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River.

Nor did he say whether this meant Hamas was finally giving in to demands to recognise Israel's right to exist.

'We are pushing towards the dream of having our independent state with Jerusalem as its capital,' he said.

'If there is a real project that aims at resolving the Palestinian cause on establishing a Palestinian state on 1967 borders, under full Palestinian sovereignty, we will support it,' he continued.

Carter told reporters that solving the Israel-Palestinian conflict according to the two-state solution, with Jerusalem as the joint capital of the two states, was the best method of achieving a comprehensive and lasting peace.

The president had earlier expressed dismay while inspecting the devastation caused by Israel's 22-day offensive in Gaza last winter.

'I have to hold back tears when I see the deliberate destruction that has been raged against your people,' he told reporters at the destroyed International American School in the northern Gaza Strip town of Beit Lahia, hit in an Israeli airstrike.

'Tragically, the international community largely ignores the cries for help, while the citizens of Gaza are treated more like animals than human beings,' he said when he addressed the graduation ceremony of the UNRWA Human Rights programme.

The former president called for reconciliation between both the two leading rival Palestinian parties, Hamas, which rules Gaza, and the secular Fatah party of West Bank-based President Mahmoud Abbas, and between Israelis and Palestinians.

The road to peace, reconstruction and ending the suffering could only go 'through Palestinian national unity,' he said, adding he felt 'sad' when he heard about Palestinian brothers killing and arresting each other in the West Bank and Gaza.

In 2007, Hamas, which beat the secular Fatah party of moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in parliamentary elections a year earlier, seized sole control of Gaza by violently ousting security forces of the western-backed Abbas.

The US and European Union barred official talks with Hamas, demanding it first recognize Israel's right to exist, renounce violence and honour Israeli-Palestinian peace agreements.

Carter arrived in the Hamas-ruled coastal enclave earlier Tuesday for rare talks with leaders of the otherwise internationally shunned radical Islamist movement.

Entering through the Israeli-controlled Erez crossing, north of Gaza City, his convoy immediately proceeded to north-east Gaza to inspect the damage of Israel's December 27-January 18 offensive, launched in bid to curb rocket attacks from the strip.

A Hamas security source meanwhile said Israel briefly closed the Erez crossing point Tuesday after explosives were found near the Palestinian side of the crossing, shortly after Carter entered Gaza.

The source, who spoke in condition of anonymity, said 'the explosives were found on the route that Carter had passed when he entered Gaza this morning.' Carter was due to leave Gaza using the same road later Tuesday afternoon.

Carter had also planned, while in Gaza, to hand Hamas a letter from the family of Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier held captive in Gaza since June 2006, whose father he met in Jerusalem on Friday.

Hamas said it would 'consider' passing the letter on to Shalit, who has been held virtually incommunicado since he was snatched in a cross-border raid launched from the Strip.

Hamas is demanding the release of thousands of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails in return for Shalit, but attempts to effect a prisoner swap have so far come to naught.

We are encouraging the talks to reach an honourable prisoners' exchange deal with Israel,' Haniya said at the news conference Tuesday.

'We want to end this file according to political and humanitarian basics. We welcome all the efforts exerted to finalize this file, in which Mr. Carter can help in order to reach a prisoners' exchange deal,' he said.