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Hamas Says Carter Visit a Boost to Militants' Legitimacy

CAIRO, Egypt -- Hamas officials said Wednesday that Jimmy Carter's meetings with leaders of the Palestinian militant group will boost its legitimacy despite criticism by Israel and the U.S. government of the former president's personal peace mission.

Carter arrived in Egypt from Israel and the Palestinian territories, where he raised Israeli anger Tuesday by embracing a Hamas official in the West Bank.

A delegation of senior Hamas officials from the Gaza Strip also came to Cairo, escorted by heavy security, and said Carter planned to meet with them Thursday.

A Carter spokesman refused to comment on Hamas' claim. After sitting down with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and speaking at the American University on Thursday, Carter is scheduled to meet in Damascus, Syria, on Friday with Hamas' top leader, Khaled Mashaal.

Carter, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate who brokered Israel's historic peace agreement with Egypt three decades ago, is on what he calls a private peace mission. He contends the U.S., Israel and other Western states should stop isolating Hamas if they want peace efforts to succeed.

Heading the Hamas delegation in Cairo were Gaza leaders Mahmoud Zahar and Said Siyam. "This meeting is a message to those who don't recognize Hamas' legitimacy as a movement," Zahar said as he left for Egypt, according to Hamas' Web site.

In Cairo, Hamas spokesman Taher Nuhu told The Associated Press that the purported Thursday meeting would be "a recognition of the legitimacy" of Hamas' victory in the Palestinians' parliamentary election in 2006.

"We do not claim we are the only legitimate group there, but we are an integral part whose legitimacy was manifested in the elections," Nuhu said.

Hamas, which has ruled Gaza since its bloody takeover last June, opposes peace negotiations with Israel and is committed to the Jewish state's destruction. The Islamic militant group has killed some 250 Israelis in suicide bombings and is branded a terror organization by the U.S. and Israel.

Traveling with his wife, Rosalynn, Carter was greeted at the Cairo airport by Omar Metwally, an official in the Egyptian foreign minister, and the U.S. ambassador to Egypt, Francis J. Ricciardone.

Ricciardone, speaking to reporters in Arabic, described Carter as a "man of peace," but said the U.S. government disagrees with him about his contacts with Hamas.

Carter also has been criticized by some Democrats in Congress. Howard L. Berman of California, who is chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Gary Ackerman, a New Yorker who heads the House subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia, urged Carter to cancel the meeting with Mashaal.