A free Palestine would be a “Taliban-like state,” Salman Rushdie has said.

Speaking during a literary festival in Berlin, Rushdie said: “I have been in favour of a separate Palestinian state most of my life, since the 1980s.

“But if there were a Palestinian state now, it would be run by Hamas and we would have a Taliban-like state – a satellite state of Iran” he told local broadcaster RBB on Thursday. “Is this what the progressive movements of the Western Left want to create?”

Rushdie, who met German president Frank-Walter Steinmeier on Sunday, said he understood concerns over the suffering in Gaza.

But he added: “I would like some protesters to mention the role of Hamas, and that’s a terrorist organisation. It’s quite strange that political progressives support a fascist terrorist group.”