MOSCOW, July 11. /TASS/. The Palestinian-Israeli settlement process is now at a deep impasse, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Tuesday after talks with his visiting Omani counterpart, Badr bin Hamad bin Hamood Albusaidi.

"As you know, special attention was focused yesterday on the problem of the Middle East settlement, the Palestinian-Israeli settlement, which has reached a deep impasse and requires special efforts to overcome the current stalemate," he said. "Our Arab friends have corresponding ideas and Russia put forward certain initiatives too."

According to Lavrov, a number of other countries are also interested in finding a way to resume direct talks between Palestine and Israel and begin to move toward implementing all relevant UN resolutions as well as the Arab peace initiative on the establishment of an independent Palestinian state that would live in peace with Israel and other countries of the region.

"So far, we don’t see any such movement. On the contrary, we see attempts to bury these UN resolutions and let things run their course. That is unacceptable and we share common approaches on this, and on the bulk of other issues, with our Omani and other Arab friends," Lavrov said.

The top Russian diplomat welcomed "Oman’s special role as it provides mediatory services on many occasions when a confidential, non-publicized dialogue geared toward creating an atmosphere of trust is needed," he said, adding that Russia highly values Oman’s role.