Palestine and Israel should treat each other with the utmost restraint and honor all of their obligations, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday.
“I am sure that any unilateral actions are counterproductive,” he said at a news conference after his meeting with President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority.
He stressed that Russian and Palestinian positions are close or virtually identical on all the key regional and global issues.
Abbas said talks with Israel are the only path to peace in the Middle East and confirmed Palestinian interest in a regional peace conference in Moscow.
“We have confirmed to Mr. President [Putin] that the only path leading to peace in the region lies through negotiations with Israel,” he said.
Putin and Abbas also opened a new Russian center for science and culture in the West Bank city of Bethlehem.
"The Russian Center of Science and Culture is opening today in Bethlehem, the city of Jesus Christ, well-known and revered across the world," Putin said at the opening. "I see this as a deep continuity of centuries-long spiritual, human ties that connect Russia and the Holy Land and, of course, as a testimony of a special nature of the relationship between our peoples," he added.
The center was built on ground donated as a gift to the Russian Imperial Orthodox Palestinian Society (IPPO) by the Palestinian authorities four years ago.
The 3,000-square meter center hosts a multimedia library, 350-seat cinema, language-teaching classrooms, a dance and ballet studio, a shop and cafe.
According to Abbas, the street leading to the center will be named after Vladimir Putin. Another Palestinian city, Jericho, already has a street named after Dmitry Medvedev, who visited the country in January 2011.
