Stranded Hamas Leader Leaves Jordan for ThailandA Hamas leader who had been stranded at the Amman International Airport for two weeks Thursday left for Bangkok, Thailand after Jordan authorities denied his entry into the kingdom.Ibrahim Ghoshe, spokesman and member of the political bureau of Hamas, or the Islamic Resistance Movement, left for Bangkok upon his own will, the official Petra News Agency reported without elaborating. Ghoshe flew into Amman unexpectedly from his exile in Doha, Qatar, on June 14 in defiance of a Jordanian government ban on Hamas activities in the country which went into effect in September 1999, when all Hamas offices were forced to close in the kingdom. He had been stranded at the airport after customs officials denied his entry into the kingdom. Ghoshe was expelled to Qatar in November 1999 with three other Hamas leaders, and the Jordanian government said they can not return unless they renounce their Hamas membership and live in the kingdom as ordinary citizens. All the four Hamas leaders are Jordanian citizens of Palestinian origin. Hamas opposes to any peace moves with Israel and stands for a holy war to liberate all lands occupied by Israel in successive Middle East wars. Its stance apparently runs against the foreign polices of Jordan, who signed a peace treaty with the Jewish state in 1994 as second Arab country, after Egypt, to take such a peace move with Israel. |
| People's Daily Online --- http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/ |