Moscow sees no need to amend the Arab peace initiative on settling the Arab-Israeli conflict, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said after talks with his Palestinian counterpart Riyad al-Maliki on Wednesday.

    According to Lavrov, the Arab peace initiative is a universal document, which everybody regards as basic. "Saudi Arabia was the first to forward the initiative, which was later joined by the League of Arab States (LAS) and the entire Organization of Islamic Cooperation. Honestly, the report, which the quartet’s representatives are currently preparing following the instructions of the quartet’s session held in February this year, is designed to confirm and update the international legal framework for the Palestinian-Israeli settlement. We hope that our partners in the ‘quartet’ will try to finish the work on this report, especially the recommendations contained in it, as soon as possible," Lavrov said. 

    Palestinian FM hopes for Russian active role in resolving conflict with Israel "We noted with concern the degradation of relations at this stage," Lavrov said. "It is essential to take additional steps to overcome this negative trend to prevent further escalation of the situation." "We believe that today there is high demand in abandoning further confrontation and in creating conditions to resume political process in the interests of an all-encompassing, fair and stable Palestinian-Israeli settlement," he stressed.

    "In this context, we believe it is important to use more actively the potential of the ‘Quartet’ of the Middle East mediators that can find the way out of the current deadlock," Lavrov said.

    "We used the existing international legal decisions to promote these approaches into the final document of the Paris meeting. We will see how much we succeeded and how helpful these efforts will be in the process of resuming the talks as soon as possible. In the meanwhile, we will try to make the talks begin as soon as possible," Lavrov said.

Source: QNA