BREAKING NEWS

Quartet report on Mideast peace still behind deadline

VIENNA – In what will likely ease tensions in Jerusalem, a senior Obama administration official told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday that the upcoming Quartet report on the status of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is still months away and that few points had actually been drafted on paper.
Envoys of the Quartet – comprised of the United States, European Union, United Nations and Russia – are meeting in Vienna this week to negotiate language for the report, which is expected to offer a brief synopsis of where the decades-old crisis currently stands.
While no timeline has been set for the report’s release, the delay of a parley on the peace process organized by France – intended to lay the groundwork for a milestone international peace conference later this year – has provided the Quartet with more time to prepare the document, which is meant, in part, to supplement the Paris initiative.
French President Francois Hollande announced the delay on Tuesday in an interview with a local radio station: “US Secretary of State John Kerry cannot come, so it [the planned May 30 ministerial meeting] has been delayed,” he said. “It will take place in the summer.”
Kerry is expected to ultimately attend the conference, which Israel opposes and the Palestinians support.