Israel-Palestine contacts key to W Asia peace : Russia

Moscow, Feb 20 (UNI) Russia today said regular contacts between Israeli and Palestinian leaders were very crucial to break the deadlock in talks on the West Asia peace process.

''It is important that Palestinian-Israeli contacts on such a level acquire a regular and substantive character,'' Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mikhail Kamynin said while commenting on trilateral meeting yesterday in West Jerusalem between Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

After radical Islamic group Hamas came to power in Palestine, the US and EU blocked aid to the Palestinian government over its refusal to recognize Israel's right to exist, give up violence and comply with previous Palestinian-Israeli agreements seeking a solution to the West Asian crisis.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said last week that Russia highly valued Rice's efforts to achieve a resolution on the issue, adding the earlier agreement between the Palestinian President-led Fatah movement and the Hamas paved the way for the three-side meeting.

Hamas, which won elections in Palestine, in January 2006, and Fatah reached an agreement on the structure of a new power-sharing Cabinet at Saudi-sponsored negotiations in Mecca last week.

The compromise was designed to avert a civil war and restart a constructive dialogue with Israel.

UNI