Russia to attend Mideast Quartet meet on Feb.2
Source: Reuters
(Adds background) MOSCOW, Jan 18 (Reuters) - Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will take part in a meeting of the Middle East Quartet in Washington on Feb. 2, RIA news agency quoted Moscow's chief negotiator as saying on Thursday. "The date has been agreed, the Russian delegation will indeed take part," RIA news agency quoted Sergei Yakovlev as saying. Yakovlev said negotiators from the group, which includes the United States, the European Union, the United Nations and Russia, will hold a preparatory meeting in Paris on Jan. 24. Earlier on Thursday, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told reporters in Berlin she had invited the Quartet negotiators to meet in Washington on Feb. 2. Several European countries, including Germany and Russia, want the quartet to play a bigger role in the peace process between Israelis and Palestinians. Rice said it would be useful for the Quartet to examine various ideas on how to get the stalled peace process back on track. Middle East peace efforts have made little progress since 2000 when a Palestinian uprising broke out months after the collapse of talks brokered by then U.S. President Bill Clinton. The Quartet drafted a "road map" for peace in 2003, calling for confidence building measures by Palestinians and Israelis but little has been done so far.
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