Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov, who is also President Putin’s special envoy for the Middle East and African, on Monday met with a Hamas delegation led by Political Bureau member Mousa Abu Marzook, the Russian foreign ministry said on Monday.
TASS, which reported the visit, noted that “Hamas controls the Gaza Strip, where the situation has aggravated dramatically in the recent months. Militants are shelling Israel’s territory from the Gaza Strip whereas Israel’s Defense Forces are retaliating at their positions.”
That’s not a bad assessment of things in and around the Gaza Strip, seeing as they’re coming from Moscow.
The meeting touched on “issues of the Palestinian-Israeli settlement,” according to the foreign ministry, which added that “key attention was focused on the problems of the Palestinian-Israeli settlement on the basis of the generally recognized international legal documents, including UN resolutions, and on efforts towards restoration of Palestinian national unity on the basis of the agreement signed between Hamas and Fatah in Cairo in October 2017.”
Hamas and Fatah signed a reconciliation deal in Cairo in October 2017, in which the two sides agreed that the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and Gaza would be operated by the Palestinian Authority “presidential guards,” and would eventually spread along the entire border with Egypt.
The agreement stipulates that legislative, presidential and national council elections should be conducted within one year of its signing, but without spelling out the details of the reconciliation deal. So, widespread democratic elections in Gaza and the PA in 4 months…
The deal also called for Hamas and Fatah to form an interim government until the elections. Well, they tried that one.
According to TASS, Moscow maintains regular contacts with Hamas, and the latest visit to Russia of a Hamas delegation was in March 2018.