Ramallah - Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas called Friday
for an international conference on the Israeli-Palestinian peace
process to take place in Moscow as a continuation of the Parley
in Annapolis, Maryland, last year.
'We stressed the importance of holding the follow-up conference,'
he told a news conference after meeting visiting Russian Foreign
Minister Sergei Lavrov.
Israel, however has not committed itself to the conference, plans
for which were announced after the Annapolis meet, on November 27
last year, restarted the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks after a
seven-year hiatus.
Senior Israeli-and Palestinian officials have been meeting
regularly, but the talks, held amid a deliberate news blackout, have
been plagued by Palestinian rocket attacks from the Gaza Strip and
Israeli raids to thwart them, and announced Israeli settlement plans
in occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank.
Lavrov, addressing the news conference with Abbas, called
on Israel to halt its settlement activities and to end its blockade
of the Gaza Strip.
He said the blockade should be stopped to enable 'all Palestinians
in Gaza to live in peace.'
'I call for ending all military activities which lead to civilian
casualties,' Lavrov said.
Israel first imposed a siege on the Gaza Strip Israel had first
closed the Gaza border crossings in June 2006, after militants from
the Strip staged a cross-border raid and snatched an Israeli soldier,
who is still being held somewhere in the enclave.
The closure was intensified in June last year, when Hamas gunmen
routed forces loyal to President Mahmoud Abbas to seize complete
security control of the Strip, and it was tightened even further in
January after an upsurge in rockets and mortar attacks from on
southern Israel.
Lavrov held talks with Israeli officials Thursday, after visiting
Syria.
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