Ismail Haniyeh, a senior Hamas official said in Gaza that leaders of the group, whose charter calls for Israel's destruction, "would be delighted" to visit Russia if Putin tendered a formal invitation.

"Maintaining our contacts with Hamas, we are ready in the near future to invite the Hamas authorities to Moscow to hold talks," Putin told a news conference in the Spanish capital Madrid where he was on a visit.

Hamas, considered a terrorist organization by Washington, won a crushing victory over the long-dominant Fatah group in an election on January 25. Haniyeh said Hamas leaders meeting in Cairo agreed to seek a unity government with other factions.

In New York, Russia's U.N. ambassador Andrew Denisov told a news conference that a key item on any agenda for any talks with Hamas would be "prevention and the stopping of all terror activities" as well as the group regarding Israel as an independent state, neighbor and partner.

Denisov also said Moscow would push for the "rejection of radical views and positions which are inappropriate" and tell Hamas to keep up the "momentum of the peace process."

Speaking through a Spanish interpreter, Putin said: "We haven't considered Hamas a terrorist organization. Today we must recognize that Hamas has reached power in Palestine as a result of legitimate elections and we must respect the choice of the Palestinian people."

Setting U.S. rules of engagement with Hamas, President Bush said in a Reuters interview a week ago that the group must abandon its goal of destroying Israel and disarm.

ISRAEL SURPRISED

Israel has said governments should not speak to Hamas unless it recognized the Jewish state and renounced violence. It has ruled out negotiating with the group, which has masterminded more than 60 suicide bombings against Israelis since 2000.

An Israeli government source voiced surprise at Putin's comments, calling them a departure from a position taken by the Quartet, to which Russia belongs along with the United States, European Union and United Nations.

"(Russia) agreed to the Quartet's statements, so people in Jerusalem are raising an eyebrow -- what's going on here?" the source said.

At a meeting in London on January 30, Quartet representatives said the Palestinians risked losing international aid if Hamas did not renounce violence and recognize Israel. Hamas has rejected the demand.

Denisov said the Palestinian people did not deserve to be cut off from such funding and that stopping it would be "counter-productive."

U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said in Washington that the Bush administration had "contacted the Russian government about what their intentions are."

"If there are any contacts between the Russian government and Hamas, we would expect that they would send that very clear message, both in public and private, that is contained in the Quartet statement."

A State Department official said Russia had not revealed Putin's plan to invite Hamas leaders at the Quartet meeting.

Hamas has largely adhered to a truce militant factions declared in March and has suggested it could be extended further if Israel gave up land it captured in the 1967 Middle East War.

In violence involving other armed groups on Thursday, Israeli troops shot dead two gunmen who threw grenades at them near a major Gaza border crossing. Gaza militants also fired a rocket into an Israel town, causing no casualties.

Southern Commander Major-General Yoav Galant said Israel would "know how to respond" to such attacks, which have increased in recent weeks, but did not want to be dragged into more tit-for-tat violence.
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