Russia issues warning to Hamas

Russia’s foreign minister warned Hamas today that the Palestinian militant group must become an essentially political movement whose militant wing could be subsumed into the recognised Palestinian “security structures.”

Sergei Lavrov, who spoke as Hamas leaders arrived in Moscow for a controversial visit, used careful language in his meeting with The Associated Press and several US media outlets – but the transformation he envisioned would mark the end of Hamas as what the European Union, the US and Israel view as a terrorist group.

“I don’t think Hamas would have any serious future if Hamas doesn’t change,” he said.

Lavrov said Russia understood the change would take time, and compared it to the peace process in Northern Ireland, where the Irish Republican Army gradually was compelled to disarm and embrace a political process in which the front stage was occupied by Sinn Fein, its political wing.

“Hamas needs to reassess its new role, for which maybe it wasn’t ready when the elections took place,” Lavrov said, referring to the January vote in which Hamas won a majority of the seats in the Palestinian parliament.

“It will be a process, hopefully not as long as the process in Great Britain regarding Northern Ireland,” he said.

The difficulties of achieving change were illustrated today when Hamas political chief Khaled Mashaal declared upon arrival that the group had no intention of discussing a recognition of Israel – one of the key demands set by the international community and by Russia itself.

“The issue of recognition (of Israel) is a decided issue,” Mashaal said.

“We don’t intend to recognise Israel.”

Lavrov later urged patience, saying: “We don’t expect that Hamas will … change itself overnight.”

Still, he said, there was a “need for Hamas, having been elected to a political body, to transform itself into a political party and to be sure that the military wing of Hamas becomes a legitimate part of the Palestinian security structures.”

Lavrov also voiced hope that Hamas would honour previous agreements between Israel and the Palestinians.

Russia’s invitation to Hamas, extended by President Vladimir Putin, was the first crack in an international front against the group, which has sent dozens of suicide bombers to Israel and does not accept the presence of a Jewish state in the Middle East.

Israel’s acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert insisted today that the international community must maintain a united front against Hamas and said that Russia has promised to limit its contacts with Hamas in the future.

“In recent days, I received messages from Russian President Putin, which talk about restrictions of their contacts with Hamas and support the principles we laid before the Palestinians,” Olmert said today.

In an apparent attempt to avoid damaging relations with Israel further, Putin decided against personally meeting the Palestinian delegation, which will only have a sightseeing tour of the Kremlin on Sunday.

Russian analysts were sceptical of Moscow’s ability to persuade Hamas to revise a radical ideology it has held since the group formed in 1987. They predicted that the talks would lead nowhere.

“Hamas won’t listen to Russia because Moscow has no real levers of influence over them,” said Fyodor Lukyanov, editor of the foreign policy magazine Russia in Global Affairs.

“This is not the time of the Soviet Union, when we had real clout in the region.”

Putin’s invitation to Hamas last month was the latest bid by Moscow to invigorate its role in Middle East peacemaking.

Moscow, which was a major player in the Middle East during the Soviet period when it provided aid to several Arab countries, belongs to the so-called Quartet of Middle East mediators alongside the US, the European Union and United Nations.

Hamas’ election victory prompted threats from the US and the EU to cut off €827m in aid to the Palestinians unless Hamas recognises Israel and renounces violence.