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Fatah envoys arrive in Moscow for talks ahead of Quartet meeting

05 July 2011 00:41 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will hold talks in Moscow on Tuesday with a group of Palestinian officials prior to an upcoming meeting of international mediators of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, APA reports quoting RIA Novosti.

The Palestinian delegation is headed by former foreign minister of the Palestinian Authority Nabil Shaath, who is a senior PNA negotiator on Israeli-Palestinian issues.

According to the Russian sources, the agenda of the talks will include a dispute between Fatah and Hamas over the formation of the unity government for the Palestinians.

Fatah and Hamas formally ended their long-running feud in April and agreed to form new cabinet of political independents. However, further negotiations came to a deadlock over President Mahmoud Abbas’s insistence that his current prime minister, Salam Fayyad remain at his post in the new government.

Another important issue on the agenda of the talks in Moscow will be the resumption of direct peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians and the prospects of the future Palestinian state.

The Palestinians want to form an independent state within the 1967 borders before Israel occupied the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem.

Israel wants Jerusalem to be its "eternal and undivided" capital.

U.S. President Barak Obama proposed in May that Israel and the Palestinians proceed from the 1967 borders in their negotiations. The idea was supported unanimously by the Mideast Quartet of negotiators - Russia, the UN, EU, and the U.S. However, Israel turned down the proposal, saying it would make it vulnerable to potential external threats.

The Mideast Quartet is scheduled to meet in Washington on July 11.