Visiting Moscow, Abbas tells Putin he’s ‘one of the dearest friends’ of Palestinians
Hosting PA leader, Russian president says Moscow is watching war in Gaza ‘with great pain,’ reiterates his backing for the ‘creation of a fully fledged Palestinian state’
The Times of Israel
Aug 13, 2024
Russian President Vladimir Putin told visiting Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Tuesday that Moscow was pained by the plight of his people and backed their aspiration to create a fully fledged state.
Putin said Moscow was paying attention to events in the Middle East despite the demands of its own war in Ukraine. He did not refer directly to Ukraine’s week-old incursion into western Russia, an operation that has caught Russia’s military off guard and forced more than 130,000 people to flee their homes.
“Everyone is well aware that Russia today, unfortunately, must defend its interests and defend its people with arms in hand. But what is happening in the Middle East, what is happening in Palestine, of course, does not go unnoticed on our part,” Putin said, according to a Kremlin transcript.
“And of course, we are watching with great pain and anxiety the humanitarian catastrophe that has unfolded in Palestine,” he added.
Abbas told Putin during their meeting that Russia was “one of the dearest friends” of the Palestinian people. “We believe in you, we trust you and we feel your support,” he said.
The Palestinian leader said the United Nations Security Council — where Russia is one of five veto-holding powers — must act to “stop the actions that Israel is taking,” after judges at the top UN court said in an advisory ruling last month that Israel’s presence in the West Bank and East Jerusalem is illegal.
Putin told Abbas that Moscow is “concerned above all about civilian losses” in the ongoing Israeli war against Hamas in Gaza, according to images shown on Russian state television. “We are doing everything… to support Palestine and the Palestinian people.”
The only way to create “long-lasting, reliable, stable peace in the region” is the implementation of all UN resolutions and the “creation of a fully-fledged Palestinian state,” the Russian president added.
Russia has long maintained ties to both Israel and the Palestinians, although relations between Jerusalem and Moscow soured after Israel largely sided with Ukraine following the Russian invasion in 2022, and Putin has since moved closer to Jerusalem’s foes, Hamas and Iran, and has been vocally critical of Israel.
While Putin has sought to cast himself as a peacemaker in the Middle East and blame the region’s problems on longstanding failures of US policy, he did not present any new initiative in his meeting with Abbas beyond reaffirming his support for Palestinian statehood and Russia’s commitment to provide humanitarian relief.
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