The Middle East Quartet of international...
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, UN General Secretary Ban Ki-moon, EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton and the Quartet"s special representative Tony Blair met for the talks in Moscow on Friday.
Lavrov said the Quartet would seek to resume Middle East peace efforts, which stalled last week after Israel announced that it had given the go-ahead to the building of 1,600 housing units for Jewish families in the disputed area of East Jerusalem.
"The members of the Quartet have agreed that we will use every available opportunity to encourage the Israelis and Palestinians to resume indirect talks. We think that the announcement that we have made today states very clearly the assessment of the situation and paves the way first towards the start of indirect talks, and then to direct talks," Lavrov said.
Ban and Clinton condemned the Israeli housing plans and demanded that all settlement activity be halted.