Russia is ready to promote direct contacts between Israel and the Palestinian leadership and working toward a high-level meeting of the Middle East Quartet mediating the Israel-Palestinian peace process, the Russian foreign minister said Wednesday.
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said after meeting with Palestinian counterpart Riad al-Maliki, “We emphasized our readiness to facilitate direct dialogue between the Palestinians and Israelis in order to resolve all fundamental final-status issues.”
2 View gallery
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, right, and Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad Al-Maliki shake hands as they leave a joint news conference following their talks in Moscow, Russia
(Photo: AP)
Lavrov said Russia considers it crucial to hold a ministerial-level meeting of the Quartet, which consists of Russia, the United States, the European Union and the United Nations.
Palestinian Foreign Minister al-Maliki said that the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden “is again aware of its responsibility in the Quartet....We expect that this will create a new environment of trust.”
Al-Maliki said that during Donald Trump’s presidency, “the American administration showed that it openly leaned toward Israel. Based on this experience, we understand that we cannot return to that situation.”
2 View gallery
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and then-U.S. President Donald Trump participate in the signing ceremony of the Abraham Accords in the White House last year
(Photo: Getty Images)
For more than three decades, the Palestinians have sought an independent state in the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem, territories seized by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War. Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005 but imposed a crippling blockade when the Palestinian militant group Hamas seized power from Abbas’ forces in 2007.
There have been no substantive peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians since Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was first elected more than a decade ago, and the two sides are fiercely divided over the core issues of the conflict.