Jimmy Carter, the former US President who brokered Israel’s first peace accord with an Arab state in 1979, held a controversial meeting yesterday with the exiled leader of Hamas, the Islamist movement whose charter calls for the destruction of Israel.

Mr Carter, who was snubbed by most Israeli leaders when he visited the Jewish state this week, met Khaled Meshaal, the Hamas leader.

The former President, who is the most senior global figure to meet the Hamas leadership, said that he wanted to include the movement in talks on settling the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He also met Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian President.

Mr Carter met Gaza-based leaders of Hamas in Cairo earlier in the week after Israel refused him permission to enter the Gaza Strip. He said that he hoped the meetings with Hamas – which is listed officially by Israel, the US and Europe as a terrorist organisation – would encourage Israeli leaders to follow his example and widen the debate on the peace process, which is stagnating despite efforts by President Bush to revive it.

“One of the reasons I wanted to come and meet with the Syrians and Hamas was to set an example that might be emulated by others,” Mr Carter said. “I know that there are some officials in the Israeli Government that are quite willing to meet with Hamas.”

One of the few Israeli leaders who met Mr Carter was Eli Yishai, a deputy Prime Minister from Shas, the ultra-Orthodox party. He said that he would be willing to meet leaders of Hamas to discuss the release of Gilad Schalit, an Israeli soldier captured in 2006.

Mr Yishai told Mr Carter. “I ask you to convey a message: They also have prisoners and I am sure they want to see them released, and therefore it is proper to expedite the negotiations.”

Israel wants Hamas isolated, diplomatically and physically, in the hope of bringing about its collapse in Gaza. The visit by Mr Carter was viewed as a breach in the international firewall, but Mr Carter insisted that the group must be included in talks, especially after it took control of Gaza in fighting with Fatah rivals last summer.

“You can’t have an agreement that must involve certain parties unless you talk to those parties to conclude the agreement . . . They have to be involved in some way,” he said.

Mr Carter’s meeting with Mr Meshaal was described as a mistake by Shimon Peres, the ceremonial Israeli President who met the American last week. Barak Obama, a fellow Democrat and presidential hopeful, also criticised the move. “We must not negotiate with a terrorist group intent on Israel’s destruction,” Mr Obama said.

One Republican congressman has proposed legislation that would prohibit further federal funding for the Carter Centre, the human rights advocacy group of Mr Carter.

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