Washington: The US State Department said it has advised former US president Jimmy Carter against meeting with the radical Palestinian group Hamas's exiled leader Khaled Meshaal if he visits Syria.

The State Department advised Carter in late March not to meet any officials from Hamas during a Middle East tour, as it is a terrorist group opposed to the Palestinian-Israeli peace talks, spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters yesterday.

He also confirmed that The Elders, a group of elder statesmen that includes Carter and former UN chief Kofi Annan, had postponed plans for a similar tour after US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice discussed the trip with Annan.

The group posted its decision on its website yesterday, the same day McCormack said Rice spoke to Annan. The conversation focused mainly on the political crisis in Kenya where Annan has been mediating, he said.

The State Department will help Carter with arrangements if he visits Syria but "will not participate in the planning or scheduling of any meetings with Hamas figures in Damascus," McCormack said.

"And in fact we have counseled the former president (against) having such a meeting," he said.

The US government brands Hamas a "terrorist" group and believes it is "not in the interests of our policy or in the interests of peace to have such a meeting," McCormack said.

Carter plans to travel next week to Syria and the region to help the Middle East peace process, but spokeswoman Deanna Congileo told AFP she could not "confirm or deny speculation of any specific meetings that might take place."

News reports say Carter, architect of the 1979 Egypt-Israeli peace treaty and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, plans to meet Meshaal, who lives in Damascus.

Source : PTI