Azerbaijan, Baku, Oct. 15 /Trend, U.Sadikhova/
Russia will play a more active role in advancing the peace process in the Middle East, but its success is not guaranteed, like other international mediators, said the deputy dean of the history department at Moscow State University, a member of the Trend Expert Council, Alexei Vlasov.
"Russia must demonstrate greater activity in the settlement of the Middle East question. But the conflict has been lasting since 1948, but the formula for the solution has not been found yet, and no international mediators can help in this case," Vlasov, editor-in-chief of analytical information portal Vestnik Kavkaza (Bulletin of the Caucasus), told Trend journalists.
According to Russian political scientist, the stagnation of the peace process is largely due to internal problems of Palestine and Israel.
"The disagreements inside the Palestine and Israel are closely intertwined. Any government of Israel sits on a powder keg," said Vlasov, adding that so far the only hope is the support of the U.S. administration to the Israeli government.
In such a situation, even Russia's mediation can not take the situation out of the deadlock, he said.
At a meeting with Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman on Wednesday, Russian President's special envoy for the Middle East, Alexander Saltanov, mentioned the need to remove barriers to promote regional peace process, including differences over Israeli settlement activities, Russian Foreign Ministry reported.
The meeting, of which topic was "various aspects of situation in the Middle East with a focus on the prospects for the continuation of the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations", took place within Saltanov's visit to Israel and the Palestinian National Authority, RIA Novosti reported.
"It is extremely important to do everything necessary to ensure the settlement of the Palestinian problem. In this regard, it needs to remove all obstacles to the progress of the negotiation process, particularly with regards to issues related to Israeli settlement activity in occupied Palestinian territories," said in a press release citing Saltanov, who is also deputy foreign minister.
Direct Israeli-Palestinian negotiations for the settlement of the conflict appeared in jeopardy because of disagreements between the parties because of the settlement issue. Palestinians sank further participation in the negotiation process with the resumption of the moratorium on building Jewish settlements in the West Bank while Israeli leaders rejected a proposal to "exchange" suspension of settlement activities with recognition of the Jewish character of Israel State.
Saltanov also discussed with Lieberman the issues of bilateral cooperation, primarily in perspective technology sectors in the light of the November meeting of the Russian-Israeli intergovernmental commission, the Foreign Ministry reported.