Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Wednesday that Moscow supported the League of Arab States' (LAS) decision to hold multilateral negotiations on the Israeli-Palestinian peace process and was ready to join such an initiative
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 19th February, 2020) Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Wednesday that Moscow supported the League of Arab States' (LAS) decision to hold multilateral negotiations on the Israeli-Palestinian peace process and was ready to join such an initiative.
"We have a common approach to the problem of Palestinian-Israeli settlement, and today we also talked about this a lot," Lavrov said at a press conference, after talks with his Jordanian counterpart, Ayman Safadi, in Moscow.
The foreign minister also said that Russia and Jordan had always been committed to the established international legal framework for resolving this conflict, including UN resolutions and the Arab Peace Initiative.
"We emphasized during our talks that attempts to overcome the conflict based on the policy of fait accompli, through unilateral actions in favor of one of the parties to the conflict, are counterproductive, as evidenced by the reaction of the vast majority of countries to the so-called deal of the century that our US colleagues proposed to us," Lavrov added.
The Russian official went on to say that in order to solve any problem, dialogue and agreement between all parties involved was crucial.
"In this regard, we expressed support for the decisions that were adopted in early February in Cairo at a meeting of the League of the Arab States, which recorded a proposal to move to a multilateral negotiation process under international auspices. We are ready for such work," Lavrov said.
Safadi, in turn, said that Israel would only hamper the conflict resolution process if it made any more one-sided decisions.
"Keeping in mind the fact that a negotiated solution to the problem is necessary based on the relevant requirements of international law and on the basis of the principle of the two-state solution, we want to warn against any unilateral Israeli step aimed at forcing the situation into a fait accompli. We warn that this will only make the situation worse," the Jordanian foreign minister said.
In late January, US President Donald Trump presented his so-called deal of the century for Middle East peace. The plan calls for creating a demilitarized Palestinian state with Israel retaining control over the West Bank and keeping Jerusalem as its undivided capital. The plan provoked strong reactions from Palestinians and many nations across the globe and kickstarted another round of conversations on how best to settle the long-standing dispute.
