MOSCOW. June 16 (Interfax) - Russia's Special Representative for the Middle East and Africa, Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov has spoken by telephone with Palestine's Vice President Hussein al-Sheikh, who is also deputy chairman of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization and a member of the Fatah Central Committee, to discuss the situation in the Middle East against the backdrop of the Iran-Israel conflict, a statement on the Russian Foreign Ministry's website said on Monday.
"The discussion focused on the current military and political crisis in the Middle East, which threatens unpredictable consequences, as the result of Israel's forceful action against Iran on June 13," the statement said.
"A special emphasis was made on the explosive situation on the West Bank in the context of Israeli illegitimate measures to restrict activities of the Palestinian National Authority," it said.
Bogdanov received Hamas Political Bureau deputy chairman Mousa Abu Marzook, with whom he exchanged views on the ongoing standoff in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict zone, with an emphasis on the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip, the ministry said in a statement later.
"The Russian side emphasized the tasks of immediate ceasefire, increasing humanitarian aid for the population, and prisoner exchange," the statement said.
"It also stressed the importance of continuing to work for the purpose of achieving an intra-Palestinian unity on the political platform of the Palestine Liberation Organization, involving the creation of an independent Palestinian state within its 1967 borders, with the capital in East Jerusalem," it said.
Also at the meeting, the sides "paid separate attention to the dangerous degradation of the overall situation in the Middle East in light of Israel's forceful action against Iran," the statement said.