Hamas denies exiled leader has moved to Sudan

2 hours ago

DAMASCUS (AFP) — The Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas on Tuesday denied that its political supremo Khaled Meshaal had moved from his self-imposed exile in Syria to Sudan.

"The movement totally denies media reports saying that Khaled Meshaal has left Syria for Sudan," a Hamas official said in a statement received by AFP. "These reports are false."

Early last month, Meshaal visited to Sudan to express solidarity with President Omar al-Beshir after the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court requested an arrest warrant for his arrest over alleged war crimes.

However, Hamas said Meshaal had since returned to Damascus.

In Khartoum, a spokesman for Beshir also denied that Meshaal had moved to Sudan. "We have no information about that," said Mahgoub Fadl.

On Monday, a Kuwaiti newspaper reported that Meshaal had left Syria to live in Sudan allegedly because of the relaunch of talks between Syria and Israel.

The two countries announced in May that they had resumed indirect peace talks brokered by Turkey after an eight-year freeze. Four rounds of talks have taken place so far and a fifth is due soon, according Israeli public radio.

Meshaal in June had said the Turkish-brokered peace talks would not affect relations between Hamas and Syria, which is home to a number of Palestinian groups.

Negotiations between Syria and Israel broke down in 2000 over the fate of the Golan Heights, the strategic plateau which Israel seized from Syria in the 1967 Six Day war and annexed in 1981 in a move not recognised by the international community.

As a condition for progress, Israel is demanding that Damascus break off its ties with Iran as well as with Hamas and Lebanon's Hezbollah militia. Israel considers both groups to be terrorist organisations.

Syria has said it would reject any preconditions in the talks that call on it to change its relations with other countries or groups.

Meshaal settled in Damascus after being expelled from Jordan in 1999 amid accusations that Hamas was threatening Jordan's security and stability.