Middle East Quartet considers resumption of Palestine-Israel talks
The UN, the US, Russia and the EU discussed how to resume stalled negotiations to end the decades-long PalestinianIsraeli conflict and reach a twostate solution.
The four Middle East mediators, known as the Quartet, released a brief statement after the online talks on Tuesday.
It said envoys discussed returning “to meaningful negotiations that will lead to a two-state solution, including tangible steps to advance freedom, security and prosperity for Palestinians and Israelis, which is important in its own right”.
No substantive peace talks have been held between the Palestinians and Israel since 2014. The two sides remain fiercely divided over the core issues of the conflict.
The UN published the statement after polls closed in Israel’s general election on Tuesday.
Exit polls indicated there was no clear winner, leaving the fate of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu uncertain and signalling continued political deadlock.
In January, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said there were “reasons to hope” for progress towards ending the Palestinian-Israeli conflict after years of inaction.
He said the UN would explore all initiatives to find “a true peace process” based on the two-state solution.
Referring to the previous US administration, without mentioning former president Donald Trump by name, Mr Guterres said: “We were completely locked down in a situation in which there was no progress visible.”
The Trump administration provided strong support to Israel, recognising Jerusalem as the country’s capital, moving the US embassy there from Tel Aviv, slashing financial assistance to the Palestinians and reversing course on the illegitimacy of Israeli settlements built on land claimed by the Palestinians.
For more than three decades, the Palestinians have sought an independent state in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem, territories seized by Israel in a 1967 war.
Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005 but imposed a blockade when the Palestinian group Hamas won the legislative election and seized power from Fatah in the enclave in 2007.
Israel annexed East Jerusalem – a step not recognised internationally – and said it has no intention of dismantling any of its West Bank settlements, which the UN says are illegal under international humanitarian law.
About 500,000 Israelis live in the West Bank, in addition to more than 200,000 in East Jerusalem.
The peace plan unveiled by Mr Trump in February last year envisioned a disjointed Palestinian state and supported Israel on contentious issues including borders, the status of Jerusalem and Jewish settlements. It was vehemently rejected by the Palestinians.
Soon after US President Joe Biden was inaugurated on January 20, his administration announced it would restore relations with the Palestinians and renew aid to Palestinian refugees, a reversal of Mr Trump’s policy and a key element of its support for a two-state solution.
Mr Guterres made clear in January that Mr Biden’s more even-handed approach opened the possibility of Quartet meetings that were previously blocked by the US, as well as broader peace efforts.
The Quartet was established in 2002 and has been criticised for its failure to persuade neither Israel nor the Palestinian Authority to change their policies and negotiate an end to the conflict.
The Tuesday statement by the Quartet envoys said they discussed “the situation on the ground, in particular the Covid-19 pandemic, the unsustainable disparity in economic development between Israelis and Palestinians and the need for the parties to refrain from unilateral actions that make a two-state solution more difficult to achieve”.