Russia hails agreement between Hamas and Fatah

Moscow, Nov 7 (UNI) Russia has welcomed the agreement between radical Palestinian organisation Hamas and the moderate Fatah party to form a new national unity government.

''We received with satisfaction the news about the agreement, which confirms further progress on the way to national reconciliation,'' a spokesman for the Russian Foreign Ministry Mikhail Kamynin said in a statement.

A Hamas official had earlier announced that his organisation and Fatah, led by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, reached an agreement on a political platform of the new Cabinet.

Under the agreement, Hamas and Fatah will be able to delegate a set number of ministers, who are not professional politicians, to form a new government, while Hamas, which controls the current Cabinet, will have the right to nominate a new Prime Minister.

The West Asia Quartet (Russia, the United States, the European Union and the United Nations), has recently increased its pressure on Hamas to recognise Israel's right to exist, abandon violence, and respect existing peace pacts after the militant Islamc group, blacklisted by many western governments as a terrorist organisation, won a landslide in legislative polls in January.

The Palestinian Authority has since then faced an international aid boycott, which the mediators say will not be lifted until the Hamas-led government met all the demands.

Russia has been insisting that Hamas should demonstrate its readiness to cooperate with the conditions and demands set out by the Quartet.

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