Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and his Syrian counterpart, Bashar al-Assad, met on Tuesday with Syria-based Hamas political leader Khaled Mashaal.
During the meeting, Medvedev stressed the importance of reconciling Hamas and Fatah, the two main Palestinian political organizations, and called on Hamas to release captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.
PALESTINIAN UNITY
The Russian president said Hamas and Fatah should reconcile on the basis of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) policy to strengthen Palestinian national unity and move the Middle East peace process forward, Russian presidential spokeswoman Natalya Timakova said.
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.
The importance of the creation of a genuinely independent and sovereign Palestinian state alongside Israel was also stressed during the meeting, Timakova said, adding 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 were scheduled to start as early as in May. Hamas has strictly opposed the talks.
Timakova said "special attention was paid to the difficult humanitarian situation on 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.
SHALIT'S RELEASE
Medvedev called on Hamas on Tuesday to release Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, who was seized in June 2006 by Palestinian militants while on patrol near the Gaza Strip.
The release of Shalit is a major precondition for the lifting of the Gaza blockade.
Hamas had long been in talks with Israel on the release of some 1,000 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons in exchange for Shalit.
In late 2009, media reports said a swap deal could be approved in the near future. However, in early February Hamas announced that is was freezing discussions on the issue.
DAMASCUS, May 11 (RIA Novosti)
