Middle East Quartet Statement

Munich, Feb­ru­ary 5, 2011
The Quar­tet — Unit­ed Nations Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al Ban Ki-moon, Russ­ian For­eign Min­is­ter Sergey Lavrov, Unit­ed States Sec­re­tary of State Hillary Rod­ham Clin­ton, Unit­ed States Spe­cial Envoy for Mid­dle East Peace George Mitchell, and High Rep­re­sen­ta­tive for For­eign Affairs and Secu­ri­ty Pol­i­cy of the Euro­pean Union Cather­ine Ash­ton — met in Munich on 05 Feb­ru­ary 2011. They were joined by Quar­tet Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Tony Blair.

The Quar­tet took note of dra­mat­ic devel­op­ments in Egypt and else­where in the region in recent days. The Quar­tet mem­bers con­sid­ered the impli­ca­tions of these events for Arab-Israeli peace and agreed to dis­cuss this fur­ther in upcom­ing meet­ings as a mat­ter of high priority.

The Quar­tet reit­er­at­ed its state­ments relat­ed to the Mid­dle East, and in par­tic­u­lar to the Israeli- Pales­tin­ian con­flict. It strong­ly urged the par­ties on that basis to over­come cur­rent obsta­cles in the peace process.

The Quar­tet reaf­firmed that nego­ti­a­tions should lead to an out­come that ends the occu­pa­tion that began in 1967 and resolves all per­ma­nent sta­tus issues, in order to end the con­flict and achieve a two-state solu­tion. The Quar­tet reit­er­ates its sup­port for con­clud­ing these nego­ti­a­tions by Sep­tem­ber 2011. The Quar­tet agreed to meet again at the lev­el of Prin­ci­pals in mid-March on the way ahead. In advance, and as a mat­ter of pri­or­i­ty, it will seek via its envoys to meet sep­a­rate­ly with Israeli and Pales­tin­ian nego­tia­tors in Brus­sels, as well as with rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the Arab Peace Ini­tia­tive Com­mit­tee. In its dis­cus­sions with the par­ties, the Quar­tet is giv­ing seri­ous con­sid­er­a­tion to their views on how to bring about resumed nego­ti­a­tions on all core issues, includ­ing bor­ders and security.

The Quar­tet com­mend­ed Pres­i­dent Abbas’ lead­er­ship of the Pales­tin­ian Author­i­ty, and con­tin­ued Pales­tin­ian state­build­ing efforts. It wel­comed the pack­age of mea­sures announced by Prime Min­is­ter Netanyahu and Quar­tet Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Blair for both the West Bank and Gaza and encour­ages full imple­men­ta­tion and addi­tion­al steps.

The Quar­tet regrets the dis­con­tin­u­a­tion of Israel’s ten month mora­to­ri­um on set­tle­ment activ­i­ty and strong­ly reaf­firms that uni­lat­er­al actions by either par­ty can­not pre­judge the out­come of nego­ti­a­tions and will not be rec­og­nized by the inter­na­tion­al community.

The Quar­tet con­demned rock­et fire from Gaza and stressed the need for calm and secu­ri­ty for both peoples.

In view of the devel­op­ments in the Mid­dle East, the Quar­tet expressed its belief that fur­ther delay in the resump­tion of nego­ti­a­tions is detri­men­tal to prospects for region­al peace and secu­ri­ty. The Quar­tet empha­sized the need for the par­ties and oth­ers con­cerned to under­take urgent­ly the efforts to expe­dite Israeli-Pales­tin­ian and com­pre­hen­sive Arab-Israeli peace, which is imper­a­tive to avoid­ing out­comes detri­men­tal to the region. 

Source:
Coun­cil of the Euro­pean Union 

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