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DOHA, Nov 29 (AFP) - Qatar's foreign minister on Monday denied his country had cut a deal with Israel to take in four leaders of the Palestinian militant group Hamas expelled from Jordan.
"We have had no contact with Israel on this issue and we didn't ask the permission of anyone" to receive the four Jordanians who were deported on November 21, Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem bin Jabr al-Thani said.
"I challenge anyone to prove" the contrary, he told the Qatari satellite TV channel Al-Jazira.
Sheikh Hamad said the four Hamas leaders were flown to Qatar under an agreement between Qatar's emir, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, and the Jordanian leadership.
Doha has banned the four - Khaled Meshaal, Ibrahim Ghosheh, Ezzat Rushuq and Sami Khater - from any political activity in the Gulf state.
Hamas spokesman Ghosheh charged that Israel, the United States and the Palestinian Authority were directly or indirectly behind the crackdown on the movement, the expulsions and the closure of the movement's political offices in Amman.
Qatar and Oman are alone among the six Gulf Arab monarchies to have commercial links with Israel, although they do not have diplomatic ties with the Jewish state.
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