Hamas chief rebuffs Assad accusation of siding with his opponents
A Hamas official has criticized Syrian President Bashar Assad for “wronging” his organization by accusing it of siding with the Syrian opposition before the departure of its political leadership from Damascus in January 2012.
In an unusually public confrontation with his former political patron, Hamas deputy political chief Moussa Abu Marzouk said his movement knew that it stood to lose a great deal from its “moral and political” decision to leave Damascus in the early days of the Syrian uprising.
“Our self-respect and adherence to movement policies forced us to take this decision and remove ourselves from Syria’s domestic affairs,” Abu Marzouk wrote on his Facebook page Sunday. “We never issued a statement attacking or condemning the Syrian regime.”
During a meeting with Palestinian leaders living in Europe last week, Assad elaborated on the circumstances that led Hamas’s political bureau chief Khaled Mashaal to leave the country. Mashaal, Assad said, had offered to mediate between the Assad regime and Syria’s Muslim Brotherhood even before the Arab Spring began.
http://www.timesofisrael.com/hamas-chief-rebuffs-assad-accusation-of-siding-with-his-opponents/
