The visit of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to Jordan and the Palestinian territory is a very important move. It’s of course a reaction to the fact that the United States has failed with the Arab-Israeli peace process. And I think that the Russian government has become rather impatient.
The visit of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to Jordan and the Palestinian territory is a very important move. It’s of course a reaction to the fact that the United States has failed with the Arab-Israeli peace process. And I think that the Russian government has become rather impatient. It feels that the quartet should be revised and that the quartet’s representatives should of course be changed.
I believe there is a very good reason to change the representative because former British Prime Minister Tony Blair did not do a good job. In fact, the quartet became inactive. They made no road whatsoever, no political road. Of course one could argue that his mandate was too limited, limited to economic patterns. The quartet should be much more political. Replacing the representative in one move, including perhaps some other countries would also be quite a good idea, like China and India who also have an interest in that part of the world. The thing is that it is very important to move ahead with the Arab-Israeli peace process, desperately important. The quartet should formulate its own views about the nature of the settlement, and eventually impose them. Even using the threat of sanctions to impose its view. The terrorism, which we are witnessing around the world now, has a lot to do with the Arab-Israeli dispute. And I believe personally that unless this dispute is settled on a fair and just basis, many, many countries will suffer far more than they have done so far.
Moreover, there should be a regional security system involving countries like Iran. I believe the United States made a great mistake in not only attacking Iran’s nuclear program but trying to destabilize the country by a very wide range of sanctions. Iran in particular needs to be drawn into the security architecture of the Gulf Region. Not to exclude it, you see the destruction of Iraq inevitably led to the rise of Iran as a regional power. The balance of power in that part of the world was disturbed by the destruction of Iraq. Iran can now no longer be excluded, and should indeed, as I say, be included in the regional security architecture of the Gulf.
