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Hamas leader urges Trump to seize 'historic opportunity'
By AFP - May 03,2017 - Last updated at May 03,2017
Hamas leader Khalid Mishal gestures as he announces a new policy document in Doha, Qatar, on Monday (Reuters photo)
WASHINGTON — The leader of the Islamist Palestinian group Hamas called on US President Donald Trump on Wednesday to break with past approaches to Middle East peace and find an "equitable solution" for Palestinians.
Khalid Mishal's comments came as Trump was due to receive Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas at the White House to explore avenues for reviving the deadlocked peace process.
Interviewed by CNN in Doha, Mishal said Trump has "greater threshold of boldness" than previous US administrations.
"This is a historic opportunity to pressure Israel... to find an equitable solution for the Palestinian people," he said. "And it will be to the credit of the civilised world and the American administration to stop the darkness that we have been suffering from for many years."
Mishal pointed to a policy document released on Tuesday by Hamas that for the first time shows a willingness to accept the idea of a Palestinian state within borders that existed after the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.
"This is a plea from me to the Trump administration — the new American administration — break out from the wrong approaches of the past and which did not arrive at a result. And perhaps to grab the opportunity presented by Hamas' document," Mishal told CNN.
The Hamas document stopped short of recognising Israel, however, and Hamas for years has called for its destruction.
"Israel doesn't recognise Palestinian rights. When Palestinians have their own sovereign, free state then they can choose without outside pressure," he said in the CNN interview.
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