Riga, 06/03/2015 (Agence Europe) - On Friday 6 March, High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini said she was “ready” to take responsibility for relaunching the Middle East peace process.
After the Israeli elections on 17 March, “we will have to relaunch the process. I'm ready to take responsibility for this”, Mogherini stated at an interparliamentary conference in Riga on foreign policy. She said that the lack of negotiations was resulting in further disaster on the ground and that the regional framework showed that the danger could be even worse than that of the past.
At the start of February, Mogherini met with the other members of the Quartet for the Middle East - US Secretary of State John Kerry, Russia's Minister for Foreign Affairs Sergei Lavrov and the representative of the United Nations secretary general - to discuss the importance of resuming the peace negotiations (see EUROPE 11249). In November 2014, the European foreign ministers said that the EU was ready to play a major role and to contribute actively to a negotiated settlement of issues linked to the final status of Palestinian territory (see EUROPE 11199). (Camille-Cerise Gessant)