Carter defies warnings to meet with Hamas leader

Former US President Jimmy Carter defied American and Israeli warnings today and met the exiled leader of Hamas and the militant group's deputy chief.

Mr Carter's four-hour meeting with Hamas chief Khaled Mashaal was the first public contact between a prominent American figure and Hamas officials since the Rev Jesse Jackson met Mashaal in Syria in 2006.

Washington labels Mashaal a global terrorist and Israel accuses him masterminding suicide bombings and kidnappings.

It followed two other meetings between the former American president and the Palestinian militant group around the Middle East this week. Hamas officials said the meetings lend the group new legitimacy.

"Political isolation (of Hamas) by the American administration has begun to crumble," Mohammed Nazzal, a top figure in Hamas' political bureau, said after today's meeting.

The US government has no contact with Hamas, however, after designating it a terrorist organisation in 1995 - an official label that means any financial or business transactions with the group are illegal. That status was not likely to change.

In Washington, the US State Department advised Mr Carter against meeting Hamas leaders before he left for the Mideast earlier this week.

Spokesman Sean McCormack repeated those objections today and suggested the former president had opened himself up to "exploitation" by both Hamas and the Syrian government.

"I don't think people are going to confuse the efforts of a private citizen, former President Carter, with the very clear policies of the United States government," he said.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice also criticised Mr Carter's plans to meet Mashaal, saying last week that Hamas is an impediment to Middle East peace.

Another senior Hamas official in Damascus described Friday's meeting as "warm."

Mr Carter asked Hamas to halt its rocket attacks against Israel, and also delivered a request by Israeli Cabinet minister Eli Yishai for a meeting with Hamas to discuss a prisoner exchange, the official said. He said Carter did not get a response on either request.

Mr Carter's convoy arrived at Mashaal's office for the meeting under tight security and reporters were prevented from getting near the site. The meeting was closed to media.

Mashaal's deputy Moussa Abu Marzouk attended the meeting with Mr Carter at Mashaal's Damascus office, according to a Hamas official at the site.

Abu Marzouk was designated a terrorist by US Treasury Department in 1995, allowing the government to seize his assets.

He was detained at John F Kennedy International Airport in New York that same year and spent two years in a New York jail before he was deported in 1997.

Hamas official Mushir Masri, in a fiery speech today to thousands of Hamas supporters in Gaza, said the meetings with Carter were proof that Hamas was not a terrorist group, but a national liberation movement.

He said countries and groups are beginning to understand that Hamas is a power to reckon with and the region will not have calm or stability without engaging the group.

"It confirms the failure of the US and European policies of ignoring Hamas," he told the crowd. "It confirms that all the countries that assume Hamas is a terrorist group should reconsider."

Carter met Syrian President Bashar Assad earlier today after arriving in Syria from Egypt. The two men discussed Syrian-American relations, Iraq, Lebanon and the "tragic situation in Gaza", Syria's official news agency SANA reported.