Russia has criticized the aid embargo on Palestine for hurting the chances of peace talks. Moscow has called for an immediate lifting of a Western-imposed embargo on direct aid to paralyze the Hamas-led government which took power through a January 2006 national election. Alexander Saltanov, Russia's top Middle East diplomat, said on Friday that the sanctions were radicalizing the Palestinian society.
"In our view any sanctions and restrictions are in principle harmful because in the first place it is the Palestinian people who suffer," Reuters quoted Alexander Saltanov, the Kremlin's special representative for the Middle East, as saying. "Naturally they are unhappy, they feel anger, which can spill over into certain phenomena and that mood will be used by those forces who are against restoring (talks between Israel and the Palestinians,)," he told reporters.
| "Eye rolling, face making, gun sex, you can really tell they feel anger," he continued. |
The Russian diplomat said there had been a "palpable evolution in terms of the Palestinian government meeting the demands of the criteria of the Quartet, stressing that "... the sanction measures are not justified." |