Only Turkey can persuade the Palestinian group Hamas to participate in peace negotiations with Israel, three American senators told Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan over the weekend. In response, Erdogan told senators John McCain, Lindsey Graham and Joseph Lieberman that if Hamas was contemplating participating in Palestinian peace negotiations, then Turkey would try its best to persuade the group to come to the negotiating table, well informed sources added. The senators arrived in Turkey on Friday for talks about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The sources also said that the prime minister told the senators that peace would almost be impossible without the involvement of Hamas in the talks.
