Hamas Leader Mashal to Visit Iran Next Month

Hamas Politburo Chief Khalid Mashal is due to visit Tehran in March, a senior member of the Palestinian resistance movement announced on Friday.
“Mashal will travel to Tehran in less than a month,” Palestine Today news website quoted Ahmed Yousef as saying today.

The senior Palestinian official reiterated that Mashal’s visit will aim to further expand Iran-Hamas relations.

In January, Hamas representative to Lebanon Ali al-Baraka said Iran as an influential country in the region has never left the Palestinians alone in their fight against Israel.

“Ever since the victory of the Islamic Revolution of Iran the Palestinian crisis has been a major propriety for Iran, whose relations with the Palestinians are of strategic value for both sides,” said Ali al-Baraka, quoted by the Palestinian news agency, Wafa.

Al-Baraka said that Hamas believes Iran is an influential country in the region and has felt that reality with its entire existence during the toughest days of the Palestinian nation’s life.

Also last month, senior Hamas official Mahmoud al-Zahar demanded Iran and the Lebanese Hezbollah movement to increase their aids to the Palestinian group, saying Hamas needs more weapons and financial backup for intensifying fight against Israel.

“We (Hamas) stretch our hand of cooperation for materializing the Palestinian cause, because Palestine is an essential issue that needs more efforts,” al-Zahar said in an interview with the Arabic-language Al-Manar television.

He noted that Hamas needs Iran’s further financial and arms aid to continue its resistance against Israel.