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Quartet to meet with Arab representatives at UN
Representatives of the Quartet will meet with counterparts from Arab countries later this month to discuss the road ahead for Middle East peace between Israel and the Palestinians. The meeting will take place at the United Nations and is part of a new European diplomatic initiative that is feeding off of the EU’s success in reaching an agreement with Iran on that country’s nuclear programme.
Representatives of Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the Arab League will sit down with colleagues from the Quartet – the United States, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations – based on the EU’s premise that getting greater buy-in and involvement from Arab countries and others will succeed where previous initiatives have not. This is also “a new start of the Quartet,” as EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini recently put it.
Haaretz reported that Mogherini sees a greater role for the EU, the Quartet and other international bodies to play, as a new initiative from Washington apparently seems unlikely to her in the final months of President Obama’s second term. “We hope that this re-start of the process can lead to improvements on the ground and also to re-open prospective and political horizons to the talks,” she said. The Quartet last met for the first time in approximately a year in March in Munich, according to an EU official.
In related news, Donald Tusk, President of the European Council, is scheduled to arrive in Israel today. He will meet with Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Rivlin and also travel to Ramallah to meet with President Abbas. These meetings take place with the backdrop of EU discussions to mark Israeli products that are made in the West Bank.
Also, Israel’s first female Ambassador to an Arab country has just begun her term. Ambassador Einat Shlein presented her credentials to King Abdullah of Jordan yesterday in Amman. A Middle East expert, Shlein previously headed the international division of the Foreign Ministry’s diplomatic research centre and served at Israel’s embassy in Washington DC.