Colleagues,
Friends
Welcome to Moscow. I am glad to have this new opportunity to interact with representatives of the leadership of all main Palestinian political parties. We share long-standing, close relations.
Five years have elapsed since our last meeting in this format. The Covid-19 pandemic intervened, but today there are no obstacles of this kind. The importance of contacts precisely in this composition has grown dramatically.
The rapidity of developments in the region and the world should encourage us to be more proactive, productive and constructive in our contacts. We are ready for this. In light of the dramatic events in the occupied Palestinian territories, this format of interaction is growing in relevance and importance. I hope you also feel it to be useful.
An unprecedented wave of violence has engulfed the Gaza Strip. In many respects, this is the result of the protracted impasse in the Middle East settlement process, caused by the US attempts to monopolise mediating efforts, end the work of the Quartet of international mediators (the US, Russia, the EU, and the United Nations), and promote a policy that they think suits their purposes. The United States is disregarding the interests of countries in the region, which have been distorted and ignored for years.
The tragic events of the last few months have cost 30,000 lives. The overwhelming majority of victims are civilians, many of them women and children. The number of wounded exceeds 70,000 and the majority of them are also women and children. The scale of the humanitarian disaster is expanding.
The UN Senior Humanitarian and Reconstruction Coordinator for Gaza has reported to the UN Security Council on the current situation. The figures are deplorable. Approximately 700,000 out of the 2.4 million Gaza residents are on the verge of starvation.
It goes without saying that our main priority is to stop the bloodshed. We have worked on this since the first days after the October 7, 2023 attack. We have condemned the assault. But it is unacceptable to respond with collective punishment of Palestinians.
On October 15, 2023, Russia submitted a draft resolution to the UN Security Council demanding a ceasefire. The United States blocked both this draft and subsequent efforts towards this goal by repeatedly using its veto. All attempts to approve a resolution demanding a durable ceasefire have failed to result in anything. On February 20, 2024, the same fate befell the initiative of our friends from Algeria.
The developments in Gaza vividly illustrate what we have been trying to get across to all of our Middle East partners for years. We said that relapses into large-scale confrontation were inevitable as long as we remain passive and fail to work together to address the root cause of this years-long conflict, namely to work to create a Palestinian state in keeping with UN Security Council and UN General Assembly resolutions. The Palestinians must exercise their right to create a state within the 1967 borders with its capital in East Jerusalem. It is only this approach, an approach that is fair and based on international law, that can lead to durable peace in the region.
We have repeatedly advocated the resumption of direct dialogue between Israel and the Palestinian National Authority, which has been blocked for a number of reasons that are beyond control of the Russian Federation and our Palestinian friends. You are well aware of these efforts. So far, they have not yielded any result.
The lack of unity in the Palestinian ranks was one of the pretexts used to postpone and reschedule these talks. Skeptics have argued that talks are out of question in a situation where no one is sure who is speaking for the Palestinians. I am speaking openly about it. We discussed this idea five years ago with you and during our other contacts. All of this has been reviewed and worked through.
Jesus Christ was born in Palestine. He famously said that a house divided against itself cannot stand. Christ is honoured by Christians and Muslims alike. I think this quote perfectly reflects the challenge of restoring Palestinian unity. It wholly depends on the Palestinians themselves. No one can create artificial obstacles on this path. It is important to understand this. I hope our efforts to organise such meetings and to provide you with a platform for a dialogue will help us move forward towards this end.
Clearly, the effectiveness of our efforts will depend on everyone’s ability to put the interests, goals and destiny of the Palestinian people above the current fleeting considerations and differences in positions and approaches. If you announce the goal of restoring Palestinian unity on the platform of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, it will yank the trump cards out of the hands of the forces that, citing internal problems in the Palestinian territories, have used them to delay the Middle East settlement process. There are forces that are leveraging the tragic events in Gaza to cement the fragmentation and disunity of the Palestinian territories.
We are aware of numerous confidential contacts between individual countries of the region. The United States is trying in every possible way to assume the role of chief negotiator. But as far as we can see from the available reports covering these talks, we are not talking about a Palestinian state, but about “normalisation” separately in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
The military operation in the West Bank has become no less serious and atrocious than in Gaza. As you may recall, over the years, Russia, as well as a number of our friends in the Arab world, such as Egypt, Algeria and other countries in the region, have made attempts to provide all Palestinians with an opportunity to meet, to remove misunderstandings and to restore unity. We believe this is an important goal. We offer you an opportunity, free of any time constraints, to try to reach common solutions to restore unity on the PLO platform.
President of Palestine Mahmoud Abbas has changed the government, dismissed the previous one, and begun the process of selecting new technocrat ministers, as announced. I hope this approach, which indicates a desire to bring a neutral “note” into the internal political process, will help intensify the intra-Palestinian dialogue and the meetings that you will hold during your current visit to Moscow.
We wish the Palestinians and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas success in forming a new cabinet. We hope it will reflect the trend towards overcoming differences and include people representing the interests of the entire Palestinian people and all its constituent parts.
Our colleagues from the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Russian Foreign Ministry whom you know well are at your service. If you manage to have a meaningful conversation within your circle the Palestinian way, I think we could count on moving forward.
Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov and Professor Vitaly Naumkin will keep working on it and will be there to provide you with advisory services, if needed. I hope that the traditional Russian hospitality will contribute to your productive work.
BY: TTU Source: Ministry Of Foreign Affairs’ Russia
