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MOSCOW - A senior Russian lawmaker called Monday for deployment
of an international peacekeeping force in the Middle East, saying
that Israel and the Palestinians were unable to end the cycle
of violence without outside help.
A cease-fire should be forced on Israel and the Palestinians
"through a collective ultimatum from Russia, the United States,
Europe and levelheaded Arab states," said Vladimir Lukin,
a deputy speaker of Russia's lower house of parliament.
"I believe that the world community should form a group
of police forces and dispatch it, as a minimum, to separate the
conflicting parties, and, as a maximum, to occupy temporarily
and partially the Palestinian territory and some parts of Israel,"
Lukin said, according to the ITAR-Tass news agency.
Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said last week that the
deployment of international peacekeepers would be desirable, but
added that it would be impossible without the consent of Israel,
which has opposed the move.
Ivanov's Mideast envoy, Andrei Vdovin, and diplomats from the
European Union met with Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres
on Monday. Vdovin said representatives of Russia, the United States,
European Union and the United Nations would discuss how to arrange
a meeting with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, the ITAR-Tass
reported.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Yakovenko condemned
the latest Palestinian terror attacks Sunday as a "criminal
action," but also urged Israel to end Arafat's isolation
and withdraw troops from the West Bank.
Israel sent troops Friday to isolate Arafat in his compound in
Ramallah and later expanded the offensive to other West Bank towns
in what the Israeli Cabinet described as an operation intended
to uproot Palestinian terrorism.
"I see no inner resources in either party to solve the problem
in the near-future without serious assistance from the world community,"
said Lukin, who served as Russia's ambassador to the United States
in the early 1990s.
The Palestinian ambassador to Moscow, Hairi al-Oridi, urged Russia
to make a stronger effort to persuade Israel to end its invasion
of West Bank, but added that Moscow had largely been sidelined
by the United States.
Al-Oridi, speaking on Echo of Moscow radio, called on Russian
President Vladimir Putin to appoint a personal envoy to the region
to raise Moscow's profile in Mideast peacemaking. The former presidential
envoy, Vasily Sredin, died in January.
Russia is an official co-sponsor of the Mideast peace process
launched in 1991 but it has played a far smaller role than the
United States.
See also:
Mideast
Peace Process
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