Colin Powell calls on international community to negotiate with Hamas

Date: 21 / 07 / 2007 Time: 11:42

Bethlehem - Ma'an – 

Colin Powell, the former US Secretary of State, has called on the international community to open dialogue with the Hamas movement.

According to Israeli radio, he stated: "Hamas is controlling the situation in the Gaza Strip. There are no signs that the Hamas movement will vanish, and it's getting huge support from the Palestinian public."

Powell is a widely respected former General, who infamously presented the case for the invasion of Iraq to the United Nations Security Council, giving detailed allegations over Saddam Hussein's "weapons of mass destruction" (which turned to be not true). It is likely (though) that his statements will cause a stir in US diplomatic circles.

Powell highlights importance of Hamas; calls for dialogue with it

[ 21/07/2007 - 08:25 AM ]

WASHINGTON, (PIC)-- 

Former US secretary of state Colin Powell has invited the international community to contact Hamas Movement and to open channels for dialogue with it, highlighting the importance of Hamas’s role in the Palestinian arena and in the region as a whole.

The international community must hold contacts with Hamas Movement, and the quartet committee should serve as the communication link between Hamas and the international community, Powell was quoted as asserting in press statements published Friday.

The former high profile US official asserted that the world mustn’t ignore Hamas Movement, in its capacity as an influential power in the Palestinian arena, while it searches for a political solution to the Palestinian issue.

Hamas is controlling Gaza Strip and couldn’t be eliminated with a blink of an eye; especially that it overwhelmingly won democratic elections, which the USA had insisted on holding, Powell added.

The US law bans any US official from contacting Hamas being classified by the US administration as a “terrorist” organization.

Hamas, who is fighting the Israeli occupation of Palestine, has offered the Israeli occupation government a long truce in exchange for an Israeli withdrawal from the 1967 occupied Palestinian lands; but Israel rejected the offer.

In a related matter, former quartet committee envoy to the Middle East James Wolfinson, in statement to the Hebrew Ha'aretz newspaper published Friday, accused the US administration of derailing his mission when he was the quartet's envoy.

“The USA didn’t spare a moment without interfering in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations; and I would be surprised if I wasn’t considered as a source of annoyance to the US state department”, the former World Bank governor was quoted by the paper as saying.

He also complained that his jurisdictions were controlled by the quartet committee which in turn, he added, was dominated by the USA, affirming that the decision to close his office after his resignation was made by the USA and not the quartet committee.

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