By Odai Sirri DOHA, Jan 30 (Reuters) - Israeli Vice Prime Minister Shimon Peres on Tuesday quoted Qatar's emir as saying Palestinian group Hamas would make peace if Israel would abandon land it occupied in the 1967 Middle East war. Peres said he also discussed Iran's nuclear ambitions with Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani during a rare visit to the U.S.-allied Gulf Arab state, his first in a decade. "In his judgement, if Israel would go back to the '67 border, Hamas will make peace with Israel," Peres told reporters after the meeting. "He (Sheikh Hamad) says Hamas was elected, he thinks Hamas is more pragmatic than we think." "I told him that Hamas refused to meet. Hamas has announced it will not recognise signed agreements between us and the Palestinians," Peres said of the group which won the Palestinian elections in 2006 and refuses to recognise the Jewish state. But, Israel "shouldn't pay so much attention to their declarations because they also have to pacify and please another audience," he reported Sheikh Hamad as saying in the one-hour meeting which he described as "frank and pleasant". Peres said the talks also addressed Iran's nuclear programme and said Israel would back increased "economic pressure and a psychological campaign" against the government of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a sworn enemy of Israel. "I don't think Israel has a problem with Iran, it has a problem with Ahmadinejad," Peres said. Peres argued that there is "a great deal of dissatisfaction within Iran" with Ahmadinejad's policies. "You cannot feed your children with enriched uranium for breakfast, you need something more than that," he said. Iran's Gulf Arab neighbours have expressed concern over Iran's nuclear plans and Saudi officials say that a nuclear Iran could spur a regional arms race. Peres was the last senior Israeli to visit Doha in 1996 when he opened a trade office in the U.S.-allied country. Israel has no formal diplomatic relations with Qatar. Qatar and several other Arab states ended an economic ban on Israel after it signed interim peace accords with the Palestinians in 1993, but relations worsened after a Palestinian uprising broke out in 2000. The only Arab neighbours with which Israel has full ties are Egypt and Jordan.
