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Palestinian organizations welcome Russia’s idea of new Moscow meeting

The parties discussed key issues for the development of Russian-Palestinian relations, including a trust-based dialogue on Middle East settlement

MOSCOW, August 21./TASS/. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov and leadership of Palestinian organizations discussed bilateral relations and Middle East settlement in telephone conversations on Friday, the Russian Foreign Ministry reported.

The Palestinian side welcomed Russia’s offer to hold a new intra-Palestinian meeting in Moscow, it said.

"Representatives of Palestinian organizations welcomed an offer from the Russian side to hold a new intra-Palestinian meeting to hammer out a consolidated position of all main Palestinian parties and movements in the interests of exercising the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people, including the right to national self-determination within the framework of their own independent, territorially integral and sovereign state in accordance with the international legal framework for the settlement of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict," the ministry said.

The parties discussed key issues for the development of Russian-Palestinian relations, including a trust-based dialogue on Middle East settlement.

The phone calls were initiated by the Palestinian side. The Foreign Ministry said that Bogdanov, who is Russian Special Presidential Envoy for the Middle East and Africa, had talked to Saeb Erekat, Secretary-General of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization, Mousa Mohammed Abu Marzook, a senior member of Hamas, Maher Taher, one of the leaders of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and Mustafa Barghouti, General Secretary of the Palestinian National Initiative.

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