Russia, Qatar call for restoring Palestinian unity soon, Lavrov says

DOHA, March 4. /TASS/. Russia and Qatar call for restoring political unity as soon as possible, which is a vital precondition for reviving the Middle East settlement process, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said after talks with his Qatari counterpart Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani on Monday. "We have said a lot about the situation in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict," Lavrov said. "We call for resolving this conflict on a generally recognized international legal basis and for providing every assistance to restoring Palestinian unity as a crucial precondition for resuming fruitful direct talks with Israel." Speaking on the developments in the Persian Gulf, Lavrov voiced Russia’s sincere interest in normalizing the situation in the region "in all aspects and given the ideas, which Russia has been promoting over the past years as part of a concept on creating collective security system in the Persian Gulf, which is a strategically important region of the world." "We certainly paid special attention to the situation in the Middle East and in North Africa, namely in Syria, Libya and Somalia," Russia’s top diplomat said. "Together with our partners we believe it is vital to stabilize the situation in these countries as soon as possible based on international law and through the all-encompassing inclusive political process, where there is no place for extremists, no matter under what slogans they shelter themselves behind," Lavrov said. Read more