MOSCOW: Hamas leader Khalid Mishal yesterday praised Russia’s efforts to end a Western aid embargo on the Palestinian administration during a visit to Moscow aimed at garnering support for a new unity government. “Our goal is to encourage the international community to start cooperation with the Palestinian government and pressurise Israel to recognise the Palestinian state’s right to exist,” RIA news agency quoted him as saying on arrival.“We value Russia’s position towards lifting the blockade from which the Palestinian people suffer. We also value Russia’s special position in the issues of the Middle East settlement.”
Russia is the only member of the Middle East Quartet, also made up of the UN, the US and the European Union, which maintains ties with the Islamist group after it took over the Palestinian government last year. Russia shares the QuartetÂ’s demands on Hamas to recognise Israel, renounce violence and accept interim peace deals. But Moscow wants Hamas to be engaged in dialogue rather than remain isolated and has been critical of the Western aid embargo introduced after the groupÂ’s election victory last year.
Mishal, who visited Egypt before Moscow, said he had Arab backing for the unity government. “There is an Arab consensus on the Makkah agreement which we have accepted as a base for forming a unity government,” he told Al Jazeera television.
MishalÂ’s visit to Moscow last year, defying a Western boycott on talks with Hamas, provoked protests from Israel and Washington.
Mishal was in talks yesterday with Russian Foreign Ministry officials and is to meet Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov today.
It was not clear whether Mishal would meet President Vladimir Putin, who held talks with Abbas in Jordan earlier this month and discussed regional issues with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert by telephone last week. – Reuters