After years of taking a back seat to the U.S.in Mideast diplomacy, Russian Federation has increasingly sought to take a leadership role in the region.
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President Vladimir Putin has been vocal in his support for President Bashar Assad in the five-year-long Syrian civil war. “I think the Secretary has said many times that he welcomes all ideas and all initiatives that can explore and hopefully get us closer to a viable two-state solution”, Kirby said then.
In Washington, a State Department spokesman said US officials were following the Russian efforts and were supportive of any effort to bring the two parties together.
The comments by Mahmoud Abbas came amid a series of efforts by Russian Federation and other countries to hold the first substantive meeting with Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu in several years.
WAFA’s report said that Bogdanov briefed Abbas on his earlier meeting with Netanyahu in Jerusalem, adding that Bogdanov informed President Abbas that Netanyahu asked to postpone the meeting in Moscow.
No agenda has been set for a Moscow meeting and experts say it seems unlikely that there will be a breakthrough.
The current US administration of Barack Obama has given up on attempting to broker any peace talks between Palestinians and Israel after Secretary of State John Kerry threw in the towel in 2014 after nine months of talks ended in failure.
“The most important thing is to pick the right timing”, Zakharova said.
On the front lines in the fight against the Zika virus, crews in infected areas are double-dosing chemicals to kill larva and adult mosquitoes. However, other Palestinian officials have continued to insist that the conditions for a meeting are the release of Palestinian prisoners, a settlement building freeze and Israeli willingness to negotiate the borders of a future Palestinian state on the basis of the 1967 lines with territorial exchanges. “When President [Vladimir] Putin invited the two sides, he said, ‘No preconditions.’ President Abbas approved that, and he said so very clearly yesterday when he was in Warsaw”, Majdi al-Khalidi told The Times of Israel in a phone interview.
At a press conference with Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, he reiterated his position of readiness to meet Abbas for direct talks without preconditions, including in Moscow.
Oren Nahari, Channel 1’s Foreign Affairs Editor, also reported that the Mitrokhin Archive contains documents with the names of over 1000 spies and informants well as information on locations of hidden weapons stores in the West, including Israel. Pioneers in the industry say it allows women to avoid looking frumpy and still carry a firearm safely.
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A spokesman for Abbas, who is on a visit to Europe, declined immediate comment.
