Lately, pessimism has been typical for commentaries on the quartet's activity and the possibility of the implementation of the quartet-sponsored plan of Middle Eastern peaceful settlement, the so-called road map of the movement of Israel and Palestine towards peace and stability.
Thus, the September meeting of the quartet focused on the need to make its decisions mandatory, for example, to formalize them as a UN Security Council Resolution and stipulate sanctions against the failure by Israel or Palestine to fulfil the steps prescribed by this plan. Without that condition, diplomats could only state that in actual fact the conflicting parties were not following the road map, and all they could do was to appeal to the parties' common sense.
The issue of the mandatory nature of the quartet's decisions is still under the stage of consideration but new problems have emerged since then. First of all, this refers to the results of the April visit by Israeli Premier Ariel Sharon to the USA. US President George Bush supported the Sharon plan to withdraw from the Gaza strip populated by Palestinians, dismantle Jewish settlements there but to keep some of such settlements on another Palestinian territory - the Western bank, in the area where it borders on Jordan.
Some of the statements made by George Bush during that visit mean that the USA already recognizes the impossibility to realize the need for Israel to return to the 1967 borders, defined by the UN Resolutions. Finally, the USA backs Israel's opinion that Palestinian refugees already cannot return to their homes.
Upon will, it is possible to interpret differently the Sharon-Bush duet, looking for some nuances, reservations and even sober thoughts in that duet. However, the Arab world where the situation is very tense due to the Iraqi developments has perceived the meeting unambiguously: the collapse of all the hopes for the solution of the Middle Eastern problem.
The quartet as such has not disintegrated from these steps because from the very beginning the four-party communication was intended as an alliance where it would be simpler for some parties to find a common language with Palestinians and for other parties to find a common language with Israel.
No one considered the conduct of a common policy on all the particulars of the Middle Eastern problem as a condition for the quartet's membership. But everything has its limits. This time, George Bush and Ariel Sharon possibly created serious problems for the road map, indeed, including the possibility of placing it into archives.
The minimum thing the quartet can do this time is to try to remedy the damage, assess the chances and the possibilities of continuing its further work.
The general outlines of the Russian position on the existing situation can be seen in the recent interview of Russian foreign minister with Izvestia newspaper. This position can be characterized as follows: Moscow would like to integrate Sharon's plans into the road map and find jointly with its quartet partners new solutions required in the existing situation.
