Russia defends Israeli-Palestinian settlement on 2002 peace initiative basis

- - Moscow defends seeking a settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on the basis of the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Wednesday.

The result should be the two states, Palestine and Israel, living in peace and security with each other and with all their neighbors, Lavrov said at a joint press conference after talks with his Palestinian counterpart Riyad al-Maliki.

The Arab Peace Initiative, advanced by Saudi Arabia and endorsed by the Arab League in 2002, calls for normalizing relations with Israel in exchange for its withdrawal from all territories occupied in 1967 and the recognition of the state of Palestine on the west bank of the Jordan River with the capital in Eastern Jerusalem.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly mentioned the Arab Peace Initiative as a generally accepted basis for further efforts to reach a settlement during his talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday, Lavrov said.

Noting that it did not need any amendments, the top Russian diplomat said the initiative was an integral one, which contains the whole complex of relations between Israel and the Arab states.

Lavrov also said Moscow supports the efforts of the Middle East Quartet, namely the United Nations, the United States, the European Union and Russia, as the main legitimate mechanism for mediating the peace process, while welcoming the recent Paris conference with a view to reversing the current rising tension and contributing to opening up direct talks between Israelis and Palestinians.

An international conference, held on Friday in Paris in a bid to revive the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, ended with a reaffirmation that a "negotiated two-state solution is the only way to achieve a lasting peace," according to its official final communique.

Neither Israeli nor Palestinian representatives were invited to the conference

source : xinhua