The United States believes that no country should host Hamas operatives, the State Department said, following reports that some of the Hamas leadership had left Doha for Turkey.
"We just learned in the last few days about this information according to which they moved to Turkey. We will make it clear to the Turkish government, as we have done with other countries, that it is no longer possible to act as if nothing is happening with Hamas," State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said in response to a related question.
The US official did not explicitly confirm the presence of Hamas operatives in Turkey, but said he was unable to "dispute" it.
"We do not think that the leaders of a vicious terrorist organization should live comfortably anywhere," much less in a NATO member country, he stressed, calling on them to surrender to the United States.
"Remember that Hamas is a brutal terrorist organization, which has murdered several Americans and continues, to this day, to hold seven American citizens hostage. Therefore, if Hamas members are in Turkey or any other country, many of them face US charges. They have been facing these charges for some time and we believe they should be extradited to the United States.
