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.