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Middle East conflict

Middle East Quartet flounders without Arab countries — Lavrov

"For many years, long before the current developments, we have been insisting that the Quartet operate in complete coordination with the Arab League," the Russian foreign minister emphasized

MOSCOW, November 21. /TASS/. The Middle East Quartet was ineffective because it did not include any representatives of the Arab world, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Tuesday.

"The Quartet of international mediators, which, as a matter of fact, was dissolved at the discretion of the United States - they refused to work in one format - this Quartet did not include representatives from the Arab, Islamic world," he said at a meeting with top diplomats from a number of Arab League and Organization of Islamic Cooperation member countries in Moscow.

"For many years, long before the current developments, we have been insisting that the Quartet operate in complete coordination with the Arab League. Our Western partners, regrettably, did not show much enthusiasm here. The United Nations failed to demonstrate due initiative on this matter. That is why the Quartet, as a matter of fact, has failed to do the job which was assigned to it by the UN Security Council," he stressed.

Foreign Ministers of Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, Indonesia, and Palestine, Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud, Ayman Safadi, Sameh Shoukry, Retno Marsudi, and Riyad al-Maliki, respectively, as well as Secretary general of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation Hissein Brahim Taha arrived in Moscow to meet with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and discuss the situation around the Gaza Strip.

Tensions flared up again in the Middle East on October 7 after militants from the Gaza Strip-based radical Palestinian group Hamas launched a surprise incursion on Israeli territory, killing many Israeli kibbutz residents living near the Gaza border and abducting more than 200 Israelis, including women, children and the elderly. Hamas described its attack as a response to Israeli authorities’ aggressive actions against the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem’s Old City. Israel declared a total blockade of the Gaza Strip and launched bombardments of the enclave and some areas in Lebanon and Syria, as well as a ground operation against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Clashes are also reported in the West Bank.

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Foreign policy Sergey Lavrov

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