MOSCOW, October 12. /TASS/. Washington and London are responsible for the latest escalation in the Middle East, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said.

"The countries that neighbor Israel and Palestine are themselves victims of this situation. We must search for the party that is truly to blame for this situation. The culprits are, of course, the Anglo-Saxon world. It is the United States and the UK," she said, answering questions from Turkish journalists on the sidelines of the roundtable titled "Russia - Turkey: The Role of Media in Boosting Cooperation."

According to Zakharova, in order to "cure the disease," it is necessary to understand its causes. "Look, the United States has declared that they are the guarantors of both the security of Israel and the situation in the region as a whole," the Russian diplomat went on to say.

"They supply weapons there, they have military bases there, they control the information cyberspace in the region. As Hamas said, they had been preparing this operation for a year. I want to ask the question: could it be that for a whole year the United States remained unaware of this operation?"

"The answer is obvious," Zakharova noted. "They couldn't help but know. This is the answer to the question of who is to blame and what should be done," she summed up.

TASS is hosting the roundtable on October 12-13. Media executives will meet with Russian senators and diplomats for expert discussions. A photo exhibition, "Cooperation between Russia and Turkey in the Lens of TASS," opened before the first meeting.