The Middle East Quartet has pushed for renewed involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the absence of any active peace initiatives to resume negotiations between the parties.
On Monday, envoys from the UN, the EU, the US and Russia held its first virtual conversation since US President Joe Biden entered the White House last month.
At the meeting, Russia “emphasized the importance of creating all necessary conditions for the earliest resumption of direct Israeli-Palestinian negotiations,” its embassy in Israel tweeted after the conversation.
The Israeli-Palestinian peace process has been frozen since April 2014. Former president Donald Trump released a peace plan to resolve the conflict in January 2020 but was unable to use that plan to jump-start the frozen talks.
The Quartet has played a role in the peace process since its inception 2002, but disagreements between the Trump administration and its other three members stymied the four-member body, which conversed and met rarely in the last few years.
Under the Biden presidency, it is expected that the four Quartet members can take a more common position as they have in the past.
“The Envoys agreed to meet on a regular basis to continue their engagement,” UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Tor Wennesland tweeted.
He participated in Monday’s conversation along with Russia’s special representative to the Middle East Settlement Vladimir Safronkov, US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for the Israeli-Palestinian Affairs Hady Amr and EU Special Representative for the Middle East Peace Process Susanna Terstal.
After the meeting, the Russian Foreign Ministry called for Quartet-mediated Israeli-Palestinian talks toward a two-state resolution to the conflict and discouraged unilateral steps, such as West Bank settlement building in a statement it posted on its website.
“It was stressed that unilateral steps are inadmissible, whether it be instigating violence or expansion of settlement activities, including breaking Palestinian buildings on the West Bank,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said. A translation of its comments was reported on by the TASS news agency.
Earlier in the month, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that the Quartet had a role to play in helping revive Israeli-Palestinian talks. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has called for a UN and Quartet-led peace process to resolve the conflict.
On Monday Amr and Safronkov spoke independently about ways their two countries could cooperate with respect to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Russian Foreign Ministry stated. Safronkov also welcomes the renewed US involvement in the Middle East Quartet.
On Tuesday Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov spoke with Israel’s Ambassador in Moscow Alexander Ben Zvi about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.