 |
Israeli settlement dispute clouds quartet mideast meeting
Instead, it must settle for now for a ministerial-level meeting of the quartet of Middle East mediators -- Russia, the United States, the United Nations and the European Union -- at a time when hopes of a breakthrough are minimal. The one-day quartet meeting will bring US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton to Moscow.
They come days after Clinton criticized as insulting the announcement of a new Israeli settlement project, which sparked Palestinian anger and dashed any hopes of indirect talks between Israel and the Palestinians soon.
“The real world is moving in the opposite direction to the quartet,” said Yevgeny Satanovsky, president of Moscow’s Institute of Middle East Studies. International efforts won’t solve the problems when Israelis and Palestinians are moving farther apart, he said, dismissing the quartet as “a very expensive club for diplomats.” The quartet itself said that it would “take full stock” of the situation at Friday’s talks, but promised nothing more.
Ban, before leaving for Moscow on Tuesday, said that the United Nations is “very concerned about the situation on the ground” in the Middle East. “I will work with our partners and the two sides to find a way to resume talks for a just resolution of this conflict,” the UN chief said.
Russia has joined the other Quartet members in criticizing Israel’s plan to build 1,600 homes for Jews in a part of the occupied West Bank it annexed to Jerusalem, and has not played up chances for progress at the talks.
“Frankly speaking, I don’t think Russia hopes for anything,” said the editor of he journal Russia in Global Affairs, Fyodor Lukyanov. “It’s clear the general constellation of forces in the region is absolutely not conducive to achieving anything.”
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has said the housing plan must be scrapped before proximity talks could start. With Middle East prospects dim, Lukyanov and other Russian analysts said the trip will give Clinton a chance to push for a new nuclear arms control treaty with Russia and for Moscow’s support for sanctions on Iran.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| AMANDA PAUL |  |
||
| Ukraine: a lost country | |||
| MÜMTAZER TÜRKÖNE |  |
||
| The 52nd anniversary of May 27 | |||
| ABDULLAH BOZKURT |  |
||
| Turkey and Mexico: Distant yet so close | |||
| BERİL DEDEOĞLU |  |
||
| Yemen and beyond | |||
| ARZU KAYA URANLI |  |
||
| On Memorial Day a few words to make your day memorable | |||
| ABDÜLHAMİT BİLİCİ |  |
||
| Google kidnaps Gül! | |||
| CUMALİ ÖNAL |  |
||
| Critical months for Egypt | |||
| GÖKHAN BACIK |  |
||
| Erdoğan, Gül and Davutoğlu: the inner bargain on Turkish foreign policy | |||
| DOĞU ERGİL |  |
||
| Qualities of power | |||
| İHSAN YILMAZ |  |
||
| The Egyptian elections, Islam and Islamists | |||
| EMRE USLU |  |
||
| Operational errors | |||
| MARKAR ESAYAN |  |
||
| There is need for a new initiative | |||
| JOOST LAGENDIJK |  |
||
| Europe can’t have it all. Or can it? | |||
| HASAN KANBOLAT |  |
||
| Are Russian tourists being discouraged from visiting Turkey? | |||
| MELİH ARAT |  |
||
| Handmade | |||
|
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
