Russia for joint efforts for ME settlement

Moscow: It is essential to resume the joint work on the Palestinian-Israeli settlement as soon as possible, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said at a joint news conference following meeting with his Jordanian counterpart Ayman al-Safadi.

“We discussed the Middle East settlement, expressing profound concern about the erosion of the generally accepted international legal framework for the Palestinian-Israeli settlement,” Russia’s top diplomat noted.

“We believe it is fundamentally important to resume as soon as possible the joint work on rescuing the foundations of the Palestinian-Israeli settlement involving the ‘quartet’ of international mediators and representatives of the Arab League.”

The minister stressed that Russia was “in favor of a speedy resumption of a direct dialogue between the Palestinian and Israeli leadership and reaffirmed its proposal to provide its territory for such direct dialogue without any preconditions.”

“We are very much concerned about the persisting rift between the Palestinians, above all, between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, between Fatah and Hamas,” Lavrov stressed. “Russia tries to contribute to overcoming this rift, welcomes and supports Egypt’s mediation efforts in this regard.”