Hamas ready to 'mend'

Senior Hamas leaders however maintained their uncompromising line on Israel, saying any softening of the organisation's positions would come about only with strictly reciprocal change in Israel's policies in dealing with the Palestinians.

"We don't say 'no' to everything," Mohammed Nazzal, a senior Hamas political figure accompanying Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal to Moscow, told AFP ahead of the delegation's meeting with Patriarch Alexei II, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, the group's last formal event in Moscow.

"We know that we are in a new phase, a new stage" following Hamas' shock victory in the January 25 Palestinian elections, he said.

"Hamas must change its manners. We know that very well. But what we are saying is that we want a response from the Israelis. If you want Hamas to change its policies, you must also request that the Israelis change their policies.

"We are saying 'yes' to peace. We are saying 'yes' to building relations with the international community. We are saying 'yes' to anything we feel will be in the interest of the Palestinian people," Nazzal said.

Nazzal and other Hamas officials described their visit to Russia, their first official contact with a major power, as a "breakthrough" they hoped would help their group -- listed as a "terrorist organisation" by Israel, the United States and Europe -- establish legitimacy on the world stage.

"This visit will encourage many countries to contact Hamas and invite Hamas to their countries," Nazzal said.

The Hamas visit to Russia was made at the invitation of President Vladimir Putin, who caught the other three members of the international Middle East "quartet" of mediators -- the United States, the European Union and the United Nations -- by surprise with the move.