New Delhi
A day after the Hamas attack on Israel and the relentless Israeli bombardment that followed, Arab League chief Ahmed Aboul Gheit chose to head for Moscow to discuss the crisis, and at a joint press conference, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov unequivocally declared that a Palestinian state was the most reliable solution for peace and security, not fighting. Later that week, Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed al-Sudani was in Russia, and in a joint press meeting, President Vladimir Putin while castigating Hamas for its cruelty, fired a salvo at the US as he stressed that the ongoing crisis in the Middle East exposed Washington’s inability to resolve conflicts by seeking to monopolise the peace settlement and trying to impose its own solution. If that was not all, nearly three weeks into the conflict, Russia sent the Israeli government into a fit of apoplexy by hosting a Hamas delegation, led by its senior political council member Moussa Abu Marzouk, for talks on the release of hostages, especially those with Russian citizenship and paying no attention to the shrill Israeli rhetoric to expel them forthwith. Coincidentally, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Ali Bagheri Kani was also in Moscow at that time and while he met the Hamas leaders, it is not known whether any tripartite meeting was held. Connecting the dots, it is evident that Russia, which has avoided taking a maximalist position on attributing the blame for the current spell of blood-letting in the Middle East like most of the world save the Western powers and their allies aims at playing – and proving it can play – its own independent role in the region where it traditionally had sway in the Soviet era. It has sought to underline its credentials by showing it is one of the few powers that has contacts with both Israel and Palestinians, including Hamas, and Iran.
