GAZA: Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov met Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal in Qatar on Monday and invited him to visit Moscow, a Hamas official said, extending a diplomatic welcome to the Palestinian group shunned by the West.

Meshaal, who is based in Doha, last travelled to Moscow in 2010, four years after his first official visit to the Russian capital.

In a statement released in Gaza, the Hamas official said a delegation led by Meshaal briefed Lavrov on conditions in the Gaza Strip, which the Islamist movement rules, in the aftermath of last summer’s war with Israel.

Meshaal also discussed with Lavrov “Zionist terrorism in the West Bank and its assaults on Muslim and Christian sites in Jerusalem”, the official said, three days after an arson attack by suspected Jewish militants killed a Palestinian toddler.

“The (Russian) foreign minister extended an invitation to the leadership of (Hamas) to visit Moscow and the movement accepted the invitation and the date will be determined later,” the official said.

Russia is one of the four international sponsors, along with the United States, the European Union and the United Nations, of an Israeli-Palestinian peace process opposed by Hamas. Peace talks have been suspended for more than a year.

Hamas is shunned in the West over its refusal to recognise Israel, accept existing Israeli-Palestinian interim peace deals and renounce violence. Russia says it should not be isolated.

Published in Dawn, August 4th, 2015

On a mobile phone? Get the Dawn Mobile App: Apple Store | Google Play