MOSCOW, September 6 (RIA Novosti) - Moscow hopes the meeting of the Middle East Quartet due to be held during United Nations General Assembly’s session to yield results, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov said in an interview with RIA Novosti.
“There are no major shifts [in Arab-Israeli conflict settlement]. There are plans to hold the Quartet meeting on the sidelines of the General Assembly’s’ ministerial week. It is most likely to take place. We hope there will be specific discussions allowing to overcome the deadlock,” Gatilov said, adding that Moscow urged to resume the Quartet’s work.
“And not only of the Quartet, but also attracting other players to looking for a settlement – the Arab League, Egypt which is playing a very important and constructive role,” the diplomat said.
On July 30, Russia’s ambassador to the United Nations Vitaly Churkin said Moscow expected a ministerial-level meeting of the Middle East Quartet to be held during the UN General Assembly session this September.
The Middle East crisis is now centered on the Israeli-Hamas standoff, which began in the late 1980s. Originally formed as a Palestinian offshoot of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas does not recognize Israel as an autonomous country and demands Palestine be reformed based on its 1967 borders, with Jerusalem as its capital.
Since the 1990s, Hamas paramilitary brigades have been carrying out terrorist attacks against Israel and its people. In 2006, Hamas beat Fatah, the ruling secular party, in legislative elections. Since then Hamas has significantly increased its influence over Palestine, becoming a powerful political force in the region, with headquarters in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.
The latest attempt to revive talks between Israel and Palestine was launched by the United States last year, but produced no results. US mediators first directed the sides towards a comprehensive peace agreement, then compromised for a deal on temporary peacekeeping principles, but have recently struggled to even bring the two sides to the negotiating table.
