Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and his Syrian counterpart, Bashar al-Assad, met on Tuesday with Syria-based Hamas political leader Khaled Mashaal, the Russian presidential spokeswoman said.
Natalya Timakova said the president, who is currently on an official visit to Syria, stressed the importance of reconciling Hamas and Fatah, the two main Palestinian political organizations, on the basis of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) policy to strengthen Palestinian national unity and move the Middle East peace process forward.
Fatah controls the West Bank and is the largest faction in the PLO. The movement has been strongly criticized by Hamas, which has controlled the Gaza Strip since the summer of 2007.
Timakova said the importance of the creation of a genuinely independent and sovereign Palestinian state alongside Israel was also stressed during the meeting, and that an "international legal base for the Israeli-Palestinian settlement has been confirmed."
Israeli-Palestinian direct peace talks came to a halt in December 2008, when Israel launched an attack on the Gaza Strip in a bid to put an end to the firing of homemade rockets at southern Israel by Palestinian militants based in the enclave. The conflict left 1,300 Palestinians and 13 Israelis dead.
Israel and the PLO approved last week a U.S. proposal for indirect peace negotiations and the first round of talks is expected to begin as early as May.
Timakova said "special attention was paid to the difficult humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip", which has been the subject of an almost continuous Israeli blockade since the summer of 2007, when Hamas took control of the enclave.
The Russian side confirmed that the decision taken during the March 19 meeting of the Middle East Quartet of international mediators in Moscow to provide humanitarian aid to residents of the enclave was still in force.
DAMASCUS, May 11 (RIA Novosti)
