(dpa) -
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was not telling the truth when she said
that the US State Department urged Jimmy Carter against meeting with Hamas, the
former president said Wednesday.
The State Department said Assistant Secretary of State David Welch telephoned
Carter before his visit to the Middle East to advise him against taking the
trip and particularly against meeting with Hamas.
"President Carter has the greatest respect for Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice and believes her to be a truthful person. However, perhaps
inadvertently, she is continuing to make a statement that is not true,"
the Carter Centre in Atlanta, Georgia said in statement.
Rice confirmed to reporters in Kuwait on Tuesday that the State Department
warned Carter against the trip.
"We counseled president Carter against going to the region, and
particularly against having contacts with Hamas," Rice said. "We
wanted to make sure that there would be no confusion and that there would be no
sense that Hamas was somehow a party to peace negotiations."
The United States lists Hamas as a terrorist organization and has sought to
isolate the militant group that now controls the Gaza Strip.
Carter met with Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal and other senior leaders over the
weekend in Damascus, as well as with another US foe, Syrian President Bashar
Assad.
"No one in the State Department or any other department of the US government ever asked him to refrain from his recent visit to the Middle East or even suggested
that he not meet with Syrian President Assad or leaders of Hamas," the
Carter Centre said.
After meeting with Mashaal, Carter said Hamas had agreed to a Palestinian state
on land seized by the Israelis in the 1967 war but would not recognize the
Jewish state.
Mashaal later confirmed that position in what was viewed as a tacit
acknowledgment that Hamas would accept the existence of Israel.