Mahmoud Abbas, Bashar al-Assad in 2009
Mahmoud Abbas, Bashar al-Assad in 2009Reuters

Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas held a meeting last Thursday with visiting Russian Federation Council Chairperson Valentina Matviyenko, in which he made a rare move and took sides in Syria's civil war by openly supporting Bashar al-Assad's regime.

Russia is currently propping up Assad with an airstrike campaign, and likewise Iran is militarily deployed to keep the Syrian president in power.

"During our negotiations with Palestinian President Abbas, he unambiguously and firmly supported Russia's actions in Syria," Matviyenko said after the meeting in an interview on the Rossiya-24 Russian TV channel.

Also signifying Abbas's ongoing attempts to further cultivate ties with Moscow, Matviyenko quoted him as saying "the fact that Russia has returned to the Middle East creates a certain balance, and this won't allow any imbalances."

She also said he expressed support for escalating the fight against Islamic State (ISIS) and "other terrorist groups," noting, "we have no disagreement in this sense."

Matviyenko's delegation was in Israel from last Tuesday to last Thursday, and met with Israeli officials as well.

Abbas's office posted video from the meeting.

On Sunday, journalist Karim Traboulsi of The New Arab noted that many of the Gulf states that oppose Assad's regime back Abbas, and speculated that Abbas's rare open backing of Assad may be intended to advance his interests against his rival Hamas.

"Hamas has refused to take sides in the war - publically (sic) at least - although many groups ideologically alligned (sic) to the Muslim Brotherhood movement are fighting against the regime," wrote Traboulsi. Hamas is a Gazan offshoot of the Brotherhood.

"The Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority, weak and short of friends, may also be clutching at straws, throwing in its lot with Russia as the balance of power in Syria is tipped against the opposition," Traboulsi concluded.

Over 260,000 Syrians have been killed in the internecine civil war since 2011, in which Assad's regime has staged a bloody crackdown on opposition rebel groups.