Iran to Host Meeting to Counter Annapolis Conference

Al-Manar

"27/11/2007 Iran said on Tuesday that it had invited Palestinian resistance factions to a meeting in Tehran aimed at countering a US-hosted Middle East conference seeking to kickstart the settlement process."These groups are planning to come to Tehran within the next week or two and they are all the Palestinian groups that are struggling for the freedom of their land," government spokesman Gholam Hossein Elham told reporters.

Iran is one of the most vocal backers of Palestinian resistance groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad and pledged millions of dollars in 2006 to the then Hamas government crippled by a Western aid cut. The Islamic republic does not recognize Israel. Elham indicated the Tehran meeting would be a riposte to the conference bringing together Israeli and Palestinian leaders which started in Annapolis outside Washington on Tuesday. "It means that the Annapolis conference is not representing the Palestinians and not talking on their behalf, but on the contrary is moving against their rights," he said."