A Quartet meeting, comprised of the Foreign Ministers of Egypt, Jordan, Germany, and France, met, on Monday, with the aim of advancing peace in the Middle East.
Egypt’s Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry received his counterparts, namely Jordan’s Ayman Safadi, France’s Jean-Yves Le Drian, and Germany’s Heiko Maas, to hold talks at the Tahrir Palace in Cairo.
The meeting aims to move forward with peace efforts in the Middle East, and resolve the current stalemate in the Palestinian cause. The participants will urge the Palestinian and Israeli sides to resume negotiation in order to reach a just and comprehensive political settlement based on the two-state solution.
The Cairo summit will also aim to guarantee the establishment of an independent and sovereign Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital.
In the past period, Egypt had established contacts with various parties concerned with the Palestinian issue, as part of preparations for holding the Quartet meeting.
For his part, Maas announced that the Quartet meeting seeks to discuss ways of resuming the currently suspended Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.
German Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Christopher Burger said, “The developments have shown that there is a possibility of stirring up a misunderstood issue within the framework of the Middle East peace process.”
Burger emphasised that the Quartet meeting will focus on “the peace process in the Middle East, and ways to take advantage of the dynamics generated by the agreements recently reached between Israel and four Arab countries.”
Previous Quartet meetings had dealt with the annexation plan issue that was announced during the Israeli election campaign, and the impact of normalisation and peace pacts between Israel and Arab countries.
The Quartet was established in February 2020, on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference, in order to move the peace process forward. It was set up in coordination with the US and all concerned parties.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has confirmed the Palestinian side’s readiness to engage in a serious political process, under the auspices of the Quartet, based on international legitimacy and law.
Abbas stressed the importance of holding an international peace conference in the first half of this year 2021 to launch the peace process.
