UN chief urges Mideast Quartet to meet in coming weeks

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February 04, 2021, 01:24 AMlatest revision February 04, 2021, 01:25 AM

 2 min read

Following the recent inauguration of US President Joe Biden’s, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Wednesday that he hopes the Middle East Quartet of mediators meets again in the next “few weeks.”

“The truth is that we were completely blocked in relation to any form of peace negotiation. We had the Israelis and the Palestinians that wouldn’t talk to each other,” Guterres said during an interview broadcast by The Washington Post.

The Quartet – consisting of the United States, Russia, the European Union, and the UN – last met in September 2018, around the same time then-President Donald Trump dramatically cut US aid to UNRWA, the international Palestinian relief agency.

“I think it is now possible to hold a Quartet meeting. I would like it to take place in the coming weeks,” he continued.

“There is a strong will of the new U.S. administration to play a positive role in creating these conditions for a true peace process to restart,” Guterres said.

“I believe that now it will be possible to have a meeting of the Quartet,” he said. “I would like to see it in the next few weeks.”

As a first step in rekindling relations, US State Department spokesman Ned Price on Tuesday evening said the Biden administration intends to restore humanitarian aid “very quickly” to the Palestinians.

“The suspension of humanitarian aid to the Palestinian people has not led to political progress,” Price said in a statement, referring to the previous administration, “nor has it made it possible to obtain concessions from the Palestinian leadership.