The Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas on Tuesday denied that its political supremo Khaled Meshaal had moved from his self-imposed exile in Syria to Sudan. "The movement totally denies media reports saying that Khaled Meshaal has left Syria for Sudan," a Hamas official said in a statement received by AFP. "These reports are false."
Meshaal visited Sudan in early August to express solidarity with President Omar al-Beshir after the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court requested an arrest warrant for the Sudanese leader over alleged war crimes.
However, Hamas said Meshaal had since returned to Damascus.
The Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Rai on Tuesday, quoting unnamed Palestinian sources, said Meshaal had "moved to Sudan from Syria" allegedly because of the relaunch of indirect peace talks between Syria and Israel.
According to the report, which was picked up by Israeli media, there was "an undeclared agreement between Syrian authorities and Meshaal stipulating that the latter should leave Syrian territory."
Al-Rai said its sources "did not rule out" that Meshaal's alleged departure from Syria was linked to "progress" in the Turkish-mediated talks between Syria and Israel.
The two countries announced in May they had resumed indirect peace talks after an eight-year freeze. Four rounds of talks have taken place so far and a fifth is due soon, according to Israeli public radio.
The negotiations broke down in 2000 over the fate of the Golan Heights, the strategic plateau which Israel seized from Syria in the 1967 Six-Day War and annexed in 1981 in a move not recognised by the international community.
As a condition for progress, Israel is demanding that Damascus break off its ties with Iran as well as with Hamas and Lebanon's Hezbollah militia. Israel considers both groups to be terrorist organisations.
Syria has said it would reject any preconditions in the talks that call on it to change its relations with other countries or groups.
Meshaal said in June that the peace talks would not affect relations between Hamas and Syria, which is home to a number of radical Palestinian groups.
In Khartoum, Mahgoub Fadl, a spokesman for Beshir, said there was "no information" about reports suggesting that Meshaal had moved to Sudan.
Meshaal settled in Damascus after being expelled from Jordan in 1999 amid accusations that Hamas was threatening the kingdom's security and stability.
