Russia sees Hamas taking more 'realistic' path
During Damascus visit, FM Lavrov says Moscow noticed 'responsibility Islamist group feels not just for what happens in Gaza but for fate of entire Palestinian people'; adds shunning Hamas from peace process helped lead to Gaza crisis
Russia's foreign minister said Sunday that Hamas is following a more "realistic" path after Israel's crushing war against the Palestinian terror group controlling the Gaza Strip.
Sergey Lavrov, who met with the top Hamas political leader in Syria's capital on Saturday, urged the group to agree to a formal truce with Israel, noting that since the end of the war in mid-January there has been less rocket and mortar fire from Gaza into Israel.
Hamas, a group that killed hundreds of Israelis in suicide bombings, has shown signs recently that is wants to be part of a Mideast solution and might someday accept a Palestinian state alongside Israel, though its official ideological stand still calls for Israel's destruction.
Its recent outreach to the West with conciliatory words, however, has so far not brought an end to its isolation. The US and its European allies regard Hamas as a terrorist organization and will not deal directly with it until Hamas recognizes Israel.
Russia, which has sought to boost its role in the Middle East, has chosen to engage the group, unlike the other members of the Quartet of Mideast peacemakers _ the United States, the United Nations and the European Union. It has invited Hamas leaders to Moscow for talks, including political leader Khaled Mashaal, whom Lavrov met Saturday in Damascus.
"We noticed a more realistic evaluation of the situation, the responsibility that Hamas feels not just for what happens in Gaza but for the fate of the entire Palestinian people," Lavrov said in remarks broadcast Sunday on Russia's state-run Vesti-24 television.
'Hamas won democratic elections'
Lavrov also met with Syrian President Bashar Assad to discuss a proposed Middle East peace conference that Moscow wants to host. The conference would include an effort to restart peace talks between Israel and Syria.
Israel's three-week offensive in the Gaza Strip was aimed at ending rocket fire on towns in southern Israel. Egyptian mediation has so far failed to broker a formal truce.
Lavrov said he pressed Hamas to try to maintain a halt to rocket fire. "The ideal thing would be to conclude a formal truce," Russia's RIA-Novosti news agency quoted him as saying.
He also took up Hamas' call for an end to a blockade of Gaza that Israel and Egypt imposed after the group seized control of the territory two years ago in a violent conflict with its Palestinian rivals.
He said he will discuss the blockade with Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman when he visits Moscow next month.
Lavrov defended Russia's engagement with Hamas, saying that all sides must be included in peace efforts and that shunning Hamas helped lead to the Gaza crisis, according to RIA-Novosti.
"This should have been done much earlier, when Hamas won elections in 2006 that everyone accepted as democratic, free and honest. But because of political prejudice, most Western countries did not recognize the Hamas government," Lavrov said.
