Pulling away from an agreed US and European policy, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that he was considering inviting the newly victorious leaders of the radical Palestinian Islamic group Hamas to Moscow to discuss solutions to the conflict in the Middle East.
He spoke during a day of chaos and violence in the Gaza Strip, where three armed Palestinians were killed as they attacked Israeli forces and Palestinian gunmen kidnapped an Egyptian diplomat.
Speaking at a joint news conference in Madrid with Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, Putin rejected claims that Russia should join with the EU and the US in declaring Hamas, which won the Palestinian parliamentary elections on Jan. 25, a terrorist organization.
"I am profoundly convinced that burning bridges in politics is the easiest thing to do, but it has no perspective, it has no future," he said. "Preserving our contacts with Hamas, we are willing in the near future to invite the authorities of Hamas to Moscow to carry out talks."
Hamas responded favorably to the offer on Thursday.
"If we receive an official invitation to visit Russia, we will visit Russia," said Ismail Haniya, a senior Hamas leader, according to a report from Gaza City.
not with the program
But Israeli officials said Putin's offer conflicted with the ground rules for negotiations that Russia signed on to at a meeting in London last month of the so-called quartet on the Middle East, which also includes the US, the EU and the UN. Those called on Hamas to renounce violence, disarm militias, recognize Israel and respect previous agreements with it, and implied that international aid would be cut off if changes were not made.
In New York, Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, warned that any weakness in dealing with Hamas would "legitimize terror," according to the Israeli ambassador to the UN, Dan Gillerman.
At a lunch meeting with UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and the ambassadors of all five Security Council permanent members, Livni said, "Any show of weakness or hesitation on the part of any country and especially a member of the Security Council would only act to legitimize terror and give Hamas a feeling that maybe the international community was weakening," Gillerman reported.
A senior State Department official said that the administration was surprised and irritated by Putin's remarks, but that Russia had assured the US that there would not be any senior-level contacts with Hamas. Asked about Putin's statement, the official said, "Frankly, it doesn't help."
A spokesman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, Mikhail Kamynin, said Russia would adhere to the approach agreed upon in London. Later on Thursday, Russia's special Middle East envoy, Aleksandr Kalugin, said Moscow hoped to bring Hamas "up to international requirements" and draw it into dialogue with Israel.
While Putin seemed to catch the Bush administration and others by surprise, it was not the first time he had voiced such an opinion. In a news conference late last month, after the Palestinian elections, he said Russia had "never regarded Hamas as a terrorist organization."
two killed
Meanwhile, before dawn on Thursday, Israeli soldiers killed two armed Palestinians who attacked the Erez crossing on the Gaza-Israel border, the military said. Israel has been permitting 5,000 Palestinian workers to commute to Israel each day through the crossing, and virtually all pass through Erez.
About half of the workers had gone through Erez by 4am when the flood of laborers suddenly stopped, Israeli officials said. Israel security officers called their Palestinian counterparts, but did not receive a coherent explanation, they said.
Also see story:
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not