July 03, 2011Mideast Quartet to meet July 11
Envoys from the Middle East diplomatic Quartet will meet in Washington on July 11, a senior US official said Saturday, ahead of a Palestinian bid to seek UN recognition of their state in September.
The United States had hesitated for months over organizing the meeting before securing substantial progress towards a return to negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians.
"There will be a Quartet meeting in Washington on July 11th," the US official told a small group of journalists, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The European Union, Russia, the United Nations and the United States make up the Quartet on the Middle East.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, her Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton will participate in the meeting. French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe had previously indicated the talks may take place.
In the West Bank city of Ramallah, Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat said he and Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas' spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina would meet US officials in Washington on Wednesday for talks on peace efforts.
"The Palestinian delegation will meet David Hale, the American Near East envoy, and other American officials to discuss efforts to relaunch peace talks with Israel," Erakat told Voice of Palestine radio.
Peace talks ground to a halt in September 2010 when Israel failed to renew a partial freeze on settlement construction in the occupied West Bank.
Since then, the Palestinians have refused to return to talks as long as Israel builds on land they want for a future state.
They are planning to seek recognition of their state within the 1967 lines that preceded the Six-Day War when the UN General Assembly meets in September, despite the opposition of both Israel and the United States.
France has indicated that it might recognize an independent Palestinian state if peace talks are not back on track by September.
Germany, like the United States, is opposed to any unilateral steps and accepts the Israeli position that any progress must be made through negotiations.
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