Russia says Israel and its Western allies do not want Palestinians to establish an independent state in the occupied territories of the West Bank and the besieged Gaza Strip, which has been under intense bombardment by the Tel Aviv regime for more than two months.
In his address at the upper house of the Russian parliament on Wednesday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov stressed that based on stances adopted by the Israeli regime and its Western allies, including the United States, neither of them wanted an independent Palestinian state in the region.
“Judging by the stance taken by the West, they are not going to have a Palestinian state established. Our data suggests that the West and the current Israeli” cabinet “do not want Gaza to be united with the West Bank, as required by the decision to create a state,” the top Russian diplomat said.
Lavrov also referred to United Nations Resolution 181 as the grounds for establishing a separate Palestinian state, part of which will be the occupied West Bank with East al-Quds as the state’s capital.
However, the occupying entity refuses to recognize Palestine as an independent political and diplomatic state and builds settlements in the occupied areas despite objections from the UN.
Lavrov emphasized that Moscow believes an international conference on the Middle East settlement is necessary, stressing that the US and its closest allies will not be able to create “a sustainable, viable concept for the creation of a Palestinian state.”
“The only way for this problem to be resolved once-for-all-time is to hold an international conference with obligatory participation of all five permanent members of the UN Security Council, representatives of the League of Arab States, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, and representatives of the Cooperation Council of Arab States Persian Gulf,” he told reporters at the Federation Council.
The Russian foreign minister also said that the UN should play a leading role in convening such an event.
“I trust that the UN Secretary General is quite capable of such an initiative,” Lavrov stressed.
Israel waged the war on Gaza on October 7 after the Palestinian Hamas resistance group carried out the surprise Operation Al-Aqsa Storm against the occupying entity in response to the Israeli regime’s atrocities against Palestinians.
More than 18,400 Palestinians have been killed, most of them women and children, and over 50,100 others injured since the onset of the current US-backed war on Gaza.
Lavrov also warned that “continuing injustice against the Palestinian people, to whom the creation of a Palestinian state was promised … fuels very serious terrorist and extremist sentiments.”
