MOSCOW, January 16. /TASS/. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Monday met with the representatives of leading Palestinian parties to call upon them to work for achieving a compromise so crucial to the people of Palestine.

"You all know very well that our country is a high-principled and persistent advocate of restoring Palestinian unity and of overcoming the split that occurred ten years ago," Lavrov said. "We have been able to see more than once that the absence of unity has an adverse impact on the solution of the Palestinian problem."

"We are certain that to ensure the unalienable rights of the Palestinian people it is necessary to conclude no easy but crucial compromises," Lavrov said. "You share a common goal of creating an independent and viable Palestinian state, which lives side by side with its neighbors. We know that a number of states are keen to help you regain unity."

"The urgency of and need for movement towards unity begin to conquer minds," he said.

Russia, Lavrov said, welcomes the meeting of the Palestinian National Council’s preparatory committee, where an important decision was made to confirm the policy of consolidation and of forming through joint efforts a government of national unity, whose competence would spread to all Palestinian territories.

"We do hope that today’s meeting and your contacts between each other will not just help make this decision a fine declaration, but also turn into action," Lavrov said.