Nazzal: Carter-Mishaal meetings “positive”

The meetings between Hamas leader Khaled Mishaal and former American president Jimmy Carter were “positive”, Mohammed Nazzal, political bureau member of the Hamas Movement said on Saturday.

He told the Aqsa TV that the meetings proved to the US administration, Israel and a number of Palestinian and regional parties that Hamas could not be isolated.

Nazzal said that his Movement knows quite well that Carter does not have any political power but it is also sure that he owns an ethical power. Carter enjoys political weight and is respected by all, he elaborated.

Nazzal appreciated Carter”s statements about racism of the Israeli occupation government and his rejection of besieging the Palestinian people.

Carter held a second meeting with Mishaal on Saturday in the Syrian capital to continue discussing a proposed calm between Palestinian factions and the Hebrew state along with prisoners” exchange and the siege on the Palestinian lands.

Nazzal said that Carter tabled a paper on his views regarding those issues, and added that the former American president asked Hamas to offer a goodwill gesture in the issue of the calm in order to embarrass the Hebrew state.

The political bureau member noted that senior Hamas leaders held a meeting midnight Friday with Carter”s advisors on the issue of releasing Palestinian prisoners in return for setting free the Israeli captured serviceman Gilad Shalit.

Carter had held a four-hour meeting with Mishaal in the presence of Hamas leaders on Friday evening.

Osama Hamdan, Hamas”s representative in Lebanon who is currently in Damascus, said that the Hamas delegation had frank, in-depth discussions with Carter.

He told Al-Jazeera TV that both parties agreed on certain mechanisms to follow up whatever was agreed upon between them.

For its part, the European campaign to break the siege on Gaza lauded Carter”s speech at the American University in Cairo in which he denounced the Israeli siege on Gaza.

Carter described the siege as a “crime” and an “abominable act”, and added that Palestinians in Gaza were “starving”.