Jimmy Carter is expected to hold more talks with senior Hamas officials ahead of a meeting with the group’s exiled leader.
Mahmoud Zahar and Saeed Seyam, top Hamas politicians in the Gaza Strip, traveled to Egypt on Wednesday for what they said would be a meeting with the former U.S. president and Nobel Peace Prize winner.
Carter, who left Israel for a two-day visit to Cairo, neither denied nor confirmed planning to see Zahar and Seyam. He was scheduled to continue from Egypt to Syria for controversial talks with Hamas’ supreme leader-in-exile, Khaled Meshaal.
A Hamas official in Gaza said Zahar and Seyam would “clarify” their position regarding the Jewish state and its peace talks with the Western-backed Palestinian Authority.
