Former US President Jimmy Carter said yesterday Hamas leaders told him they would accept a peace agreement negotiated by their rival, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, if Palestinians approved the deal in a vote.
"They said they would accept a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders if approved by Palestinians... even though Hamas might disagree with some terms of the agreement," Carter said in a speech, after talks in Syria and Egypt with Hamas leaders.
"It means that Hamas will not undermine Abbas's efforts to negotiate an agreement and Hamas will accept an agreement if the Palestinians support it in a free vote," he said.
Hamas said after it violently took control of the Gaza Strip in June from Mr Abbas's Fatah faction - prompting him to sack a Hamas-led government - that he was not authorised to talk peace with Israel on behalf of the Palestinians.
Mr Carter and Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal discussed in Damascus on Friday and Saturday how the Islamist group, shunned by Israel and the West, could be drawn into a peace plan and drop its opposition to Mr Abbas's negotiations with the Jewish state.
Mr Carter said that excluding Hamas "is just not working", citing on-going violence along Israel's border with the Gaza Strip.
Hamas has rejected Western calls to recognise Israel, renounce violence and accept existing interim Israeli-Palestinian peace deals.
Mr Carter said that Hamas turned down his proposal for a 30-day unilateral ceasefire with Israel. He said Hamas did not trust Israel to respond to such a truce.
Mr Carter's willingness to meet officials from Hamas has drawn criticism from Israel and the US, which both regard it as a terrorist group.
"We believe that the problem is not that I met Hamas in Syria," Mr Carter said in his address. "The problem is that Israel and the US refuse to meet with these people, who must be involved."
He said "there's no doubt that both the Arab world and the Palestinians, including Hamas, will accept Israel's right to live in peace within the 1967 borders".
Israel captured the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in the 1967 Middle East war. Mr Abbas wants to establish a Palestinian state in both areas under a peace deal the United States hopes can be reached by the end of this year.
Israel pulled troops and settlers out of the Gaza Strip in 2005 but maintains control of the territory's borders and has tightened its restrictions on the passage of movement and goods since Hamas's takeover.