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Russia's Lavrov to attend Mideast Quartet's session July 19

RIA Novosti

16/07/2007 14:33

MOSCOW, July 16 (RIA Novosti) - Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will attend a ministerial meeting of the Quartet of mediators on the Middle East conflict in Lisbon on July 19, the ministry's official spokesman said Monday.

"An agreement has been reached to go ahead without a previously-confirmed agenda," Mikhail Kamynin said. "However, there are a lot of issues, as you know."

Envoys of the Middle East Quartet - the United Nations, the European Union, the United States, and Russia - met July 10 in London to discuss a date for the ministerial meeting.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas earlier reiterated the need to deploy international peacekeepers in the volatile Gaza Strip, controlled by Islamist radical group Hamas since their violent ousting of pro-presidential Fatah last month.

Hamas, which previously shared power with Fatah in a coalition government, is fiercely opposed to any UN contingent, and has pledged to fight international peacekeepers in the same way that it is fighting Israel.

Foreign ministers of the Quartet were to meet on June 26 in Egypt, but the talks were put off over the violent clashes between Hamas and Fatah loyalists in Gaza. Some negotiators said the situation in the Palestinian territories had to be calmed before such a meeting could be held.

Unlike the other members of the Quartet, who have given their full support to Fatah, Russia has insisted that all Palestinian factions must be engaged in the peace process, and has highlighted the danger of permanently dividing the Palestinian territories.

The situation in Gaza exploded in mid-June after an ongoing armed struggle between Hamas and Fatah supporters, which left many dead, and the West Bank and Gaza under the separate control of Fatah and Hamas, respectively.

Since Abbas dissolved the coalition government and formed an emergency Cabinet in the West Bank, Israel has released over $100 million in frozen taxes in a show of solidarity with the moderate Palestinian leader, and agreed on an amnesty for hundreds of Palestinian gunmen. Tel Aviv and the international community have meanwhile moved to further isolate Hamas in the small and crowded Gaza Strip, which is heavily dependent on Israel for electricity, water, and food. Hamas refuses to recognize the new Palestinian government.

Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert held discussions in Jerusalem earlier in the day, on ways of strengthening Fatah's control over Gaza.