UNITED NATIONS, October 30. /TASS/. The United Nations Security Council can play a bigger role to help Israel and the Palestinians to fulfill their former decisions concerning the settlement of the bilateral conflict, Russian Permanent Representative at the United Nations Vitaly Churkin said on Thursday at an emergency meeting of the Security Council on the Middle East.
He said that possible measures might include a visit by Council members to the region and a resolution fixing Palestine-proposed terms of termination of Israel’s occupation.
He reminded that under the roadmap developed by the Quartet of international Middle East settlement mediators /Russia, the United States, the United Nations and the European Union/, the latter task was to be fulfilled in a two-year’s period and the conflict was supposed to be finally settled by 2005. “Now we are on the threshold of 2015. The situation in the region is still degrading, obstacles on the path to peace are still in the place,” he said, adding that attempt to hold “behind-the-scenes talks” under the United States’ mediation “end in failure each time.”
“On this background, the Security Council can play a much bigger role in terms of helping the parties to fulfill their previous decisions. There can be many options. Such as a Security Council mission to the Middle East the Palestinian delegation and other Arab delegations asked about three years ago, or a resolution fixing parameters of termination of occupation and time frames suggested by Palestine,” Churkin said.
He expressed the hope that the Security Council “will manage to override a vicious tendency,” when its attempt to have a bigger say in the settlement of the Palestinian problem “are blocked by just one delegation.