You're reading: Putin visits West Bank, tours key Christian shrine

BETHLEHEM, West Bank (AP) — Visiting Russian President Vladimir Putin praised his Palestinian counterpart on June 26 for what he said was a "responsible" position in negotiations with Israel, frozen for nearly four years, and said Russia has no problem recognizing a Palestinian state.

Putin
also offered veiled criticism of Israel, saying unilateral actions — an
apparent reference to Israeli settlement construction on war-won land —
is not constructive.

Putin spoke at the end of a visit to the biblical West Bank town of Bethlehem, with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas by his side. Putin inaugurated a Russian cultural and language center in Bethlehem and toured the church built over the traditional birth grotto of Jesus.

Israeli-Palestinian
talks on the terms of Palestinian statehood broke off in 2008. Repeated
efforts to restart them have failed because of wide gaps between
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Abbas.

Netanyahu
says he is ready to resume talks but rejects preconditions. Abbas says
there’s no point negotiating as long as Israel keeps building for Jews
in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, occupied territories the
Palestinians want for a state, along with the Gaza Strip. Israel has
moved half a million settlers to the West Bank and east Jerusalem since
the 1967 war. Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005.

“We talked about ways of overcoming the dilemma of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process,” Putin
said on June 26. “I point out here the responsible position of President
Abbas and his endeavor to reach a peaceful settlement based on a
two-state settlement.”

“I am sure that all unilateral actions are not constructive,” he added.

Russia
is an important Mideast player, in part because it is a member of the
“Quartet” of mediators that includes the United States, the European
Union and the United Nations. Of the four, Russia
is seen as the most sympathetic to the Palestinians but has little sway
over the group, because the United States has traditionally claimed the
dominant role in mediating between the two sides.

With
negotiations frozen, Abbas has sought to increase Palestinian leverage
by seeking U.N. recognition of a state of Palestine according to the
pre-1967 war frontiers. Palestinian diplomats have also toured the world
in search of recognition of Palestine by individual countries.

Dozens of countries, including the former Soviet Union, did so after a 1988 statehood declaration by the Palestine Liberation Organization. Putin said on June 26 that Russia
sticks by that decision. The United States and Israel have urged Abbas
to halt all attempts to seek recognition of a Palestinian state and wait
for a deal with Israel.

Abbas reiterated on Tuesday, June 26 that negotiations with Israel remain his key goal. He said he asked Putin
for help in persuading Israel to release veteran Palestinian prisoners
who’ve been in jail since before the interim Israeli-Palestinian peace
deals of the mid-1990s.

Later Tuesday, Putin
traveled to neighboring Jordan, where officials said he discussed with
Jordan’s King Abdullah II ways to end the uprising in Syria, restarting
Palestinian-Israeli peace talks, Iran’s nuclear program, Russian assistance to Jordan to build a nuclear reactor for peaceful purposes and modernizing an oil terminal in the Gulf of Aqaba.

With close ties to Iran and a vote on the U.N. Security Council, Russia
is seen as an important player that could influence Tehran, though it
has in the past watered down international pressure on the Islamic
Republic.

Russia is also one of Syrian
President Bashar Assad’s closest allies. Assad has drawn international
condemnation for his bloody crackdown on the country’s armed uprising.

As the closed-door meeting began in Amman, Jordan’s banned Tahrir, or Liberation Party, condemned Putin as an “enemy who is not welcome in Jordan.”

It called Putin
“an arch enemy of Islam and Muslims,” citing his close ties with Assad.
“His visit to Jordan is an arrogant challenge to the feeling of
Muslims and a disdain of innocent blood shed in Syria.”

On June 25, Putin met Netanyahu, who urged Russia to step up pressure on Iran to curb its suspect nuclear program. Putin
said his talks with Netanyahu covered the situation in Iran and the
uprising in Syria, adding that he saw negotiations as the only solution
for such matters.

At a state dinner on June 25, Israeli President Shimon Peres pressed Putin further, asking that he “raise his voice” against a nuclear Iran. Putin responded by saying that Russia has a “national interest” to secure peace and quiet in Israel but did not elaborate further.