Russia urges Hamas to respect pacts with Israel: Palestinian group in Moscow
MOSCOW, March 3: Russia on Friday urged Hamas to respect all accords with Israel as the head of the Palestinian radical group, holding his first talks with a major power, insisted it was ready to ‘move forward’ in relations with the Jewish state.
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that Moscow counted on Hamas, which is preparing for power after its stunning January election victory, to implement previous Palestinian Authority (PA) agreements with Israel.
“We count on Hamas, as the leading political force in the parliament and future government, to contribute to the full and all-encompassing implementation of all previous agreements,” he told Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal in Moscow.
Mr Meshaal said before the meeting that Hamas, which refuses to recognise the state of Israel, was ready to ‘move forward’ in its relations with that country.
“Hamas is fully ready to go forward as much as this is possible. Everything now depends on Israel’s policies,” he said.
The visit to Moscow is the Hamas chief’s most significant trip yet as his movement — regarded as a terrorist group by the United States and Europe but not Russia — seeks to emerge from the international cold following the vote.
Russia is part of the international quartet, which also includes the European Union, United States and United Nations, pushing for peace in the Middle East.
Mr Meshaal said earlier that he wanted to use the invitation from President Vladimir Putin as a springboard for dialogue with the international community, which has largely shunned Hamas.
As well as refusing to recognise Israel, Hamas has claimed responsibility for dozens of lethal suicide bombings against Israeli targets.
“Cooperation with the international community is important for us and we regard our visit to Moscow, the capital of a great power, as the beginning of this type of contact,” Mr Meshaal said earlier.
Mr Lavrov, for his part, said Moscow respected the result of the January vote as ‘free, fair and honest elections’.
Russia has urged Hamas to recognise Israel, ‘renounce violence’ and adhere to prior agreements between the Israelis and Palestinians.
Mr Meshaal insisted Israel bore the blame for the Middle East impasse. “The problem is not in Hamas’s position or the Palestinian position,” he told reporters after arriving in Moscow under heavy security.
“Israel is the one which has frozen the roadmap and the US administration has abandoned the roadmap,” he said.
He was referring to the blueprint for peace drawn up by the quartet which aims to produce a viable Palestinian state coexisting in peace with Israel.
“The ball is in Israel’s court. Israel should recognise Palestinian rights,” Mr Meshaal continued.
The Hamas delegation includes five other top Hamas officials and deputies from Syria, Lebanon, Gaza and the West Bank.
Mr Putin caught the other members of the quartet by surprise when he invited Hamas leaders to Moscow after its landslide election win.
Mr Lavrov and other senior Russian officials have stressed the invitation was designed to underline to Hamas the need to align itself with the principles of the international powers trying to broker peace.
Israeli officials have described Mr Putin’s invitation to Hamas as a ‘knife in the back’, although the Europeans have signalled the talks could be useful in breaking the impasse.
The United States, however, said on Thursday its strategy continued to be to isolate Hamas financially and to try to make it ‘enormously difficult’ for the radical group to govern.
David Welch, US assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern Affairs, told US lawmakers Washington was trying to persuade governments not to meet leaders of Hamas.
The Kremlin said on Friday that Mr Putin had talked by telephone with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak about regional issues ‘in light of the working contact with the leadership of the Hamas movement beginning today in Moscow’. —AFP
