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US not interested in restart of Middle East Quartet’s work — Russian deputy UN envoy

"We are consistently coming out in favor of the restart of direct Palestinian-Israeli negotiations, which should result in the creation of an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital, with taking into account Israelis' national security concerns," Dmitry Polyansky said

UNITED NATIONS, July 26. /TASS/. Russia will continue its efforts towards the restart of the Middle East settlement process, while the US is not interested in the resumption of activity of the Middle East Quartet of international mediators (Russia, US, UN and EU), Russia’s First Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN Dmitry Polyansky told a UN Security Council meeting on Tuesday.

"We are consistently coming out in favor of the restart of direct Palestinian-Israeli negotiations, which should result in the creation of an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital, with taking into account Israelis' national security concerns," Polyansky said.

"We are confident that there is a need to boost multilateral efforts, including in the format of the Middle East Quartet of international mediators. With this in view, we reaffirm our commitment to cooperate with Quartet partners to make more efficient the work of this UN Security Council-approved format," the diplomat stressed.

The diplomat emphasized the importance of international mediators' coordination with regional partners. "Russia's initiative to hold an expanded ministerial meeting of the Middle East Quartet with the key members of the Arab League was prompted exactly by this," Polyansky noted.

"Regretfully, this issue remains unresolved due to the lack of interest in the US in the resumption of the Quartet's activity," he added.

According to Polyansky, Russia will continue its efforts aimed at coordination of joint actions for getting back on track the Middle East settlement process in favor of just solution of the Palestinian problem. "As practice shows, attempts to monopolize the settlement and to impose economic peace on the Palestinian people instead of fairly honoring their aspirations to create their own independent state have not led, do not lead and cannot lead to concrete results," Polyansky said.