ANTALYA, March 1. /TASS/. Palestinian factions agreed at their meeting in Moscow that they would respect the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) and this is likely to become a step forward towards their unity, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said at the Antalya Diplomacy Forum.

"In the communique adopted at a meeting of Palestinian factions in Moscow yesterday, for the first time they wrote down their willingness to respect the platform of the Palestinian Liberation Organization. Unless it remains a slogan, it will actually be a good step forward for them to get truly united and to speak in the same language to the outside world," he said.

As reported earlier, representatives from various Palestinian movements intended to meet in Moscow from February 29 through March 1-2, for consultations in order to overcome an internal split. The Russian side provided a venue for the meeting between delegates from factions within the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), including the Fatah movement, as well as participants from Hamas and the Islamic Jihad group. In all, envoys from more than 10 organizations have arrived in Moscow for the meeting. As Ayman Al-Raqab from the Fatah movement told a TASS correspondent, at the Moscow meeting the Palestinian factions planned to reach a consensus on forming a single Palestinian government of technocrats.