Russian foreign minister urges Mideast Quartet, Arab League to join efforts

ABU DHABI, February 1. /TASS/. The Mideast Quartet of international mediators in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (Russia, the United States, the European Union and the United Nations) should intensify its work and organize close interaction with the League of Arab States (LAS), Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Wednesday. The Russian foreign minister made this statement at the 4th session of the Russian-Arab cooperation forum in the capital of the United Arab Emirates. "We consider it necessary to step up the work of the Mideast Quartet," Lavrov said. "Moreover, it is not the first year that we have been seeking that the Quartet should work in close coordination with the LAS rather than in isolation," the foreign minister said. "It is the LAS that has initiated the Arab peace initiative, which creates a solid basis for solving all principled issues of settling both the Palestinian problem and the Arab-Israeli conflict," Lavrov said. "That is why, we are convinced that the LAS should be represented in a full-fledged manner in all these efforts," Lavrov said. Read more