Lieberman urge Russia to end contacts with Hamas

Moscow, Feb 28 (UNI) Israeli Strategic Planning Minister Avigdor Lieberman has urged Russia to end contacts with the Palestinian radical Islamic movement Hamas and expressed hope that it would not oppose stiffer sanctions against Iran at the UN Security Council.

''To my regret, not only Russia, but some countries in Western Europe as well maintain contacts with Hamas,'' Mr Lieberman said today in an interview to a Russian daily Kommersant.

''We are not happy with it. We are trying to persuade Russia to comply with common standards in defining terror,'' he said.

''Terror cannot be either good or bad, our own or someone else's.

It is impossible to name Chechen militants terrorists and yet refer to Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal as the leader of a national liberation movement,'' he added, pointing to Mashaal's visit to Moscow, this week.

''Russia and Israel are on one side of the barricades. I think, Russia will back harsh sanctions against Iran,'' he said.

''Everything keeps changing. Russia was to start shipping nuclear fuel to Iran's Bushehr nuclear power plant, but it has not done so,'' he said, stressing Russia's position regarding Tehran had changed recently.

Mr Lieberman said Iran was a threat to the entire world community.

''The ideology professed by Iran does not boil down to the elimination of Israel alone. It conveys a totally different approach to life,'' he said.

UNI