Vice President Dick Cheney, concluding two days of talks with Israeli and Palestinian leaders, said Monday that Hamas militants and their backers in Iran and Syria are playing the role of spoiler in Mideast peace talks. "It is clearly a difficult situation, in part, because I think it's true, there's evidence, that Hamas is supported by Iran and Syria and that they're doing everything they can to torpedo the peace process," Cheney told reporters before heading to Turkey, the final stop on his 10-day trip to the Mideast.Cheney said there's ongoing concern about the extent to which arms are being smuggled across the Egyptian border into Gaza where they're being used by Hamas to attack Israel. "It's a continuing problem," he said. "All of that obviously has resulted in the ongoing activity of launching rockets into Israel and threatening the lives of Israelis and obviously making it difficult for there to be the kind of progress that I think we would all like to see," Cheney said.
Cheney said Iran and Syria are trying to scuttle the peace process — through Hamas, in the case of Gaza, and in the past it's most likely been through Hezbollah. "Hezbollah went through the dustup with the Israelis in '06. They've been completely resupplied by the Iranians, oftentimes providing materials through the Syrians and then flying materials into Damascus and then taking them by road into Lebanon," Cheney told ABC News in an interview Monday in Ankara.
He said Hamas, Hezbollah and other militant groups have significant representation in Damascus. "That's where they operate from," he said. "There's been a very close relationship over the years, obviously, between Iran and Hezbollah. I don't think there's any question but what Iran and Syria have no interest in seeing the peace process succeed. That's a conclusion that I arrived at not just on my own, but also from talking with people in the region."