Russian President Vladimir Putin held a phone call with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas about negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, the Kremlin said on Monday.
The phone call may come as a dig at Israel after Prime Minister Naftali Bennett put his mediation efforts between the two Eastern European warring factions on ice to tackle a political crisis back home as his coalition lost its majority in the Knesset.
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Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Russian President Vladimir Putin
(Photo: EPA, AP)
The call also comes one day after Putin fired off a letter to Bennett on Sunday demanding a Jerusalem landmark be immediately transferred into Russian hands.
They also talked about "the problems of the Middle East settlement in the context of escalating tensions in the West Bank and East Jerusalem", the Kremlin said.
Last Friday, at least 152 Palestinians were wounded in clashes with Israeli riot police inside the Al-Aqsa mosque compound, the latest outbreak in an upsurge of violence that has raised fears of a slide back to wider conflict.
According to Abbas' office, Putin expressed his opposition to Israel's actions around the mosque, as well as the abridgment of the freedom of worship, and assured the Palestinian leader of Russia's support in all international forums.
The Russian president also said that Russia will provide the Palestinians and other countries in the Middle East with all their food security needs, including wheat and other crops. He also said that Russia will make every effort to reach a solution with Ukraine through negotiations.
Former Israeli ambassador to Russia Zvi Magen suggested on Monday that Jerusalem better ignore Moscow's actions to avoid further straining the relationship between the two countries.
"On the ground, everything is calm and the cooperation [between Israel and Russia] is upheld," he said. "If they stop cooperating with us on the ground, and start waving concrete fists around our region, then we'll have to respond. At the moment, it is clear that this is an internal-political problem and we will come out of it as we did before."