OREANDA-NEWS. June 02, 2011. Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation Sergey Lavrov met First Vice Premier and Strategic Affairs Minister of the State of Israel Moshe Ya’alon in Moscow on June 1.

They exchanged views on issues of a Palestinian-Israeli settlement, particularly in the light of the ongoing developments in the Middle East and North Africa, on the situation surrounding Iran’s nuclear program and on a number of other pressing international topics.

The Russian side reaffirmed its principled stand in favor of continuing the collective efforts of the international community, the Quartet in particular, to find compromise solutions and restore trust between Israelis and Palestinians in order to achieve a political settlement to the Palestine question within a clearly defined international legal framework, including the two-state principle. This would have special significance in terms of helping to stabilize the situation in the Middle East and North Africa and of ensuring sustainable democratic development and equal security for all countries in the region. Lavrov noted the importance of the achieved inter-Palestinian reconciliation for advancing the peace process, and reiterated the need to further strengthen Palestinian unity on the basis of the PLO platform and the Arab peace initiative; he briefed on the steps being undertaken by Russia toward this end.

The participants in the conversation were unanimous in their condemnation of manifestations of terrorism seeking to derail peace efforts and victimizing innocent human beings.

Sergey Lavrov advanced arguments for Russia’s approach in favor of removing all the concerns about the nature of Iran's nuclear program solely through negotiation, and expressed the readiness of our country to help achieve this with the understanding that Iran as a party to the NPT has an inalienable right to develop a peaceful nuclear program under IAEA control.

Moshe Ya’alon laid out the Israeli leadership’s vision of the developments in the region, and gave an assessment of the prospects for resuming Palestinian-Israeli negotiations, as well as the role of the Iranian factor in the region. In general, he spoke positively about Russia's efforts to assist the Middle East peace process.

The parties expressed satisfaction with the substantive nature of Russian-Israeli political dialogue, with the development of cooperation in the trade and economic sphere, and with the deepening of partnerships in the high technology area. They noted the growing role of the Russia-Israel Joint Intergovernmental Commission on Trade and Economic Cooperation in increasing the effectiveness of bilateral interaction.