DUBAI (Reuters) – A Palestinian Hamas delegation will visit Syria later this month to renew ties with President Bashar al-Assad, after years of turning his back on him due to a crackdown on the protest movement. two sources told Reuters.
According to an official of the Islamist organization, this trip should take place on the return to the Gaza Strip, scheduled for October 10, of a delegation which went to Algeria to carry out reconciliation discussions with the President’s Fatah. Palestinian Mahmoud Abbas.
A second source, a Palestinian official familiar with the matter, confirmed the future visit to Syria.
A Palestinian source in Syria, on the other hand, denied it, while Hamas, in power in Gaza since 2007, and the government in Damascus made no comment.
Hamas leaders publicly supported the uprising in Syria in 2011 and closed their office in Damascus in 2012, much to the anger of Iran, an ally of both the Palestinian movement and Bashar al Assad.
Hamas has since renewed ties with Tehran, which supplies it with weapons, but has moved more cautiously with Damascus so as not to upset the Sunni Arab countries that support it financially.
(Written by Timour Azhari, French version Tangi Salaün, edited by Sophie Louet)
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