Russian President Vladimir Putin received Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas at his residence in Novo Ogarevo on August 13, TASS reported.
During the working part of the meeting, Putin and Abbas discussed the need to establish a Palestinian state by numerous UN Security Council resolutions, as well as - which seems a little more realistic and achievable - an early ceasefire in Gaza.
The extent to which the latter is possible will become clear when a new round of indirect talks between Israel and the Gaza-based Palestinian group Hamas begins on August 15.
The Palestinian leader was expected in Moscow back in November, but then he was forced to postpone his visit due to the "complicated situation" in the Middle East.
Opening the talks in Novo Ogarevo, Vladimir Putin said: "Russia today, unfortunately, has to defend its interests, defend its people with weapons in their hands. But what is happening in the Middle East, what is happening in Palestine, it has certainly not been left unheeded by us". According to him, Moscow is worried "about the losses among the civilian population" of Gaza: "According to UN data, they are already 40,000 people, and mostly, mainly women and children." At the same time, the humanitarian catastrophe deepens with each passing day. In this regard, the Russian leader reminded that Moscow has sent over 700 tons of humanitarian cargo to Palestine (we are talking about the period from October 2023 to July 2024).
Vladimir Putin stated that Russia has always supported a peaceful settlement of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
According to him, "the roots of this problem are far in the past" and are related to the ignoring of the UN resolutions on the creation of two states - Arab and Jewish - on the territory of Palestine.
"We believe that in order to ensure a long-term, reliable and stable peace in the region, it is necessary to implement all the decisions of the United Nations and, above all, to create a full-fledged Palestinian state," the Russian leader emphasized.
In turn, Mahmoud Abbas thanked Putin for this position, calling Russia "one of the dearest friends of the Palestinian people." After Putin, he also invoked UN Security Council resolutions and criticized the world body for failing to help create a Palestinian state. At the same time, according to Abbas, the United States is to blame for the impotence of the United Nations, which until June of this year blocked all resolutions calling for a cease-fire in Gaza.
Looking to the future, Mahmoud Abbas emphasized that the Palestinians would not accept any possible initiatives that would involve their eviction from the West Bank (which, it should be recalled, is controlled by Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah cohorts) and Gaza (where until recently Hamas ruled ).
"We will not accept this, we will not accept the expulsion of the Palestinians from the Gaza Strip, from the West Bank, from Jerusalem, as happened many times before in the twentieth century: in 1948, in 1967. And we believe that with your support, we will achieve our goals," the Palestinian leader addressed Vladimir Putin. The last time Mahmoud Abbas was in Russia was in November 2021 - his meeting with President Putin took place in Sochi.
In October 2022, the two politicians met in Kazakhstan at the summit of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia. Since the start of the war in Gaza, the Russian and Palestinian leaders have spoken by phone three times. During the same period, representatives of Hamas - the main rivals of the Fatah movement, visited Russia four times. The last visit of Hamas to Moscow took place at the end of June - the delegation of the radical movement was led by the deputy head of the group, Musa Abu Marzouk.
Among the challenges facing Mahmoud Abbas is intra-Palestinian reconciliation.
Fatah, Hamas and other groups still cannot agree on a government of national unity.
Without this, long-term goals such as the creation of a universally recognized Palestinian state cannot be achieved. In recent months, negotiations between the various Palestinian forces on this issue have taken place in Beijing and Moscow, among others. If Palestine speaks with one voice, perhaps it will be easier to solve the more pressing tasks as well. Key among them is the successful conclusion of talks on the Gaza Strip brokered by the US, Qatar and Egypt. The next round is expected to start on August 15 in Doha - both Hamas and Israel have already made it clear they are interested in continuing indirect contacts. Mahmoud Abbas supports Hamas in this regard: he has repeatedly called on the international community to put pressure on Israel to agree to the agreement. However, Abbas did not raise the topic in the open part of his meeting with Vladimir Putin.
According to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, the mediators - mainly the United States - are determined to achieve a truce at any cost.
According to the newspaper, Washington has threatened Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: if he breaks off the negotiations, the US will change its policy towards Israel. Until now, the position of Joe Biden's administration has been that the blame for the failure of the negotiations lies solely with Hamas, but now the White House sees the main obstacle in the position of the Jewish state, the newspaper said.
Discussions on the parameters of the Gaza ceasefire may soon resume.
At the same time, on the eve of the negotiations, as often happens, there was an escalation of relations. Thus, on August 10, Israel struck a school building in the At-Tabain area of central Gaza, in which, according to the Palestinian side, more than 90 people died. The Israeli army said it attacked an "operational control centre of Hamas." On August 12, Abu Obeida, a spokesman for the al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, said the group had killed one of the Israeli hostages. For the first time since October, Hamas publicly announced the killing of a hostage. And it certainly did not improve the atmosphere before the new round of negotiations. | BGNES
