A Publication of the ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN LAITY
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| Volume 7 Number 5 - Tuesday, February 1st, 2005 |
A Publication of the ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN LAITY |
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The Orthodox Christian Laity
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The Orthodox Christian News Service |
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MOSCOW (AP)--Palestinian Leader Mahmoud Abbas was due in Moscow Sunday for an official visit as part of his first foreign trip since his election earlier this month. Abbas was scheduled to meet Monday with President Vladimir Putin, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and the head of the Russian Orthodox Church , Patriarch Alexy II. He leaves Russia Tuesday morning. The Palestinian ambassador to Moscow, Khairi Al-Oridi, said the visit had "great importance" and praised "the role of Russia in the Middle East and its firm principled position on a general, just and lasting settlement of the Mideast crisis," the ITAR-Tass news agency reported, citing an interview published Sunday in the Saudi newspaper Ar-Riyadh. Abbas' talks with Putin and other Russian officials will touch on the Middle East peace process, the situation in the region in general and bilateral relations, ITAR-Tass quoted Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Yakovenko as saying. Russia is part of the so-called quartet seeking a resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, along with the U.S., the U.N. and the European Union, but Moscow has traditionally played a secondary role to Washington in Mideast peacemaking. A Cold War-era supporter of the Palestinians, its relations with Israel have improved significantly since the 1991 Soviet collapse. Arab nations have expressed an interest in a stronger Russian role in the Middle East. In a four-day visit to Moscow last week, Syrian President Bashar Assad played up Russia's clout on the world stage and won a write-off of most of his country's multimillion-dollar debt to Moscow. Abbas, whose trip comes amid renewed hopes for peace after a sharp drop in violence between Israel and the Palestinians, has visited Jordan and Egypt and is also to travel to Turkey and Switzerland.
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