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During his official to Syria, French President Nicolas Sarkozy gave his Syrian counterpart Bashar al-Assad Noam Shalit’s letter. Assad, who would not be viewed as an official intermiadery between Hamas and Israel, handed the letter over to Qatar’s emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani (picture) during a four-way summit with Turkey and Qatar in Damascus.
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PARIS (EJP)---Qatari Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani handed on Thursday a Damascus-based leader of Hamas a letter from Noam Shalit to his son Gilad kidnapped in June 2006 by Palestinians near the Gaza Strip.
The Gulf country leader already played a mediating role in the release of the Bulgarian nurses in Libya last year and in the inter-Lebanese accord of Doha in May.
According to the Qatari press, Khaled Meshaal has promised to deliver the letter to Shalit's captors in Gaza with the hope that they will pass it on to the 22-year-old soldier.
During his official visit to Syria, French President Nicolas Sarkozy gave his Syrian counterpart Bashar al-Assad Noam Shalit’s letter. Assad, who would not be viewed as an official intermediary between Hamas and Israel, handed the letter over to Qatar’s emir during a four-way summit with Turkey and Qatar in Damascus.
The Qatar emir is a personal friend of President Sarkozy who has been trying to help secure Gilad Shalit's release. The 22-year-old Shalit holds dual French-Israeli citizenship.
The French president is said to have made the issue a primary foreign policy objective in his administration.
"This is an issue I want to say very little about," Sarkozy told AFP in Damascus.
"What I'm interested in is results,” he added.
According to French media reports, Egypt will continue to play the main role in negotiations for an eventual exchange between Gilad Shalit and Palestinians detained in Israel.
