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The US has said it would warn the Turkish government that there could be “no more business as usual” with Hamas after members of the Palestinian militant group’s political leadership reportedly moved to Turkey.
State department spokesman Matt Miller on Monday told reporters: “We don’t believe that the leaders of a vicious terrorist organisation should be living comfortably anywhere, and that certainly includes in a major city of one of our key allies and partners.”
Miller added he could neither confirm nor deny reports that officials from the Palestinian militant group’s political leadership had relocated from Qatar to the Nato ally. But he said: “There can be no more business as usual with Hamas.”
The US warning comes as Biden administration officials have sought to blame Hamas for the failure of ceasefire talks with Israel, which have been stalled for months.
American officials are hoping that progress with Lebanon on ending the conflict between Hizbollah and Israel might also give impetus to the Hamas-Israel negotiations. Amos Hochstein, a senior adviser to US President Joe Biden, is due to arrive in the Lebanese capital on Tuesday to try to push the talks forward.
An Arab diplomat told the Financial Times that some of Hamas’s officials had relocated from Qatar to Turkey after Doha suspended its role as mediator in the talks to end the war in Gaza and secure the release of the remaining hostages held in the Gaza Strip.
Qatar warned the group last month that if it was not willing to engage seriously in the negotiations it would not be able to retain its political office the Gulf state. A second person familiar with the matter said some Hamas officials were in Turkey.
The Arab diplomat said it was not clear if the Hamas officials’ move to Turkey, which has long been sympathetic to the group, was permanent or temporary.
A Turkish foreign ministry official said members of the Hamas political bureau “occasionally visit Turkey”.
“The claims that the Hamas political bureau has moved to Turkey do not reflect reality,” the official added.
Qatar has hosted Hamas’s political office since 2012 and has been one of the main meditators, along with the US and Egypt, seeking to broker a deal to secure the release of Israeli hostages and a permanent ceasefire to end the more than year-long war in Gaza.
But the gas-rich Gulf state, which is an important US ally, has drawn criticism from some Washington lawmakers for its role in hosting the militant group’s political leadership.
Doha has also been angered by hostility from Israeli politicians, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Qatar has been frustrated by the failure of both Netanyahu’s far-right government and Hamas’s leadership to reach a compromise and get a deal over the line.
The talks to end the conflict, which erupted after Hamas’s October 7 2023 attack killed about 1,200 people, according to Israeli officials, have been deadlocked for months.
Hamas has insisted it would only accept a version of a multi-phased deal that would lead to a permanent ceasefire and Israel’s withdrawal from the strip in return for the release of hostages, which it endorsed at the beginning of July.
Netanyahu, meanwhile, has repeatedly rejected a permanent end to the war and the withdrawal of Israeli troops from the devastated Gaza strip, where Israel’s offensive has killed more than 43,000 people, according to Palestinian health officials.