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CAIRO, Egypt -- President Dmitry Medvedev said Tuesday that Moscow aimed to hold a Middle East peace conference before the end of 2009, a move backed by Egypt.
Russia, which has proposed such a conference in the past, is a member of the Quartet of Middle East negotiators, along with the European Union, the United States and the United Nations.
"We paid special attention to Middle East issues. We highly appreciate efforts by the Egyptian president to create an atmosphere of trust and cooperation in the region," Medvedev said after talks with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.
"[The] Moscow Middle East conference, which we plan to hold before the end of the year, will also contribute to achieving this goal," he said at a joint news conference in Cairo.
Israeli spokesman Yigal Palmor said Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman recently told Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov that Israel "would, in principle, agree to attend, provided, of course, that anti-peace elements such as Hamas and Hezbollah are not invited."
Moscow is the only quartet member talking to Hamas, the group that controls Gaza but which is snubbed by Israel and the West.
Yasser Abed Rabbo, aide to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, said, "We welcome the holding of an international conference in Moscow. But before it can go ahead, there must be real improvements." This included stopping Israeli settlement activity on Palestinian land and an Israeli commitment to a two-state solution, he said.
The Palestinians, like Egypt and other Arab states, have dismissed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's conditional proposal for a demilitarized Palestinian state.
Medvedev's trip to Egypt comes less than three weeks after U.S. President Barack Obama visited Cairo.
Medvedev Calls for Middle East Peace Conference by Year's End
24 June 2009
Reuters
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