Moscow, March 19 (DPA) Leaders of the so-called Middle East Quartet of the UN, US, European Union and Russia are meeting in Moscow Friday for talks on the way forward in the impasse on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.
However the talks come against a backdrop of strained US-Israeli relations after the announcement of new Jewish settlement building in East Jerusalem, and overnight Israeli bombing raids against targets in Gaza.

On Thursday, the EU’s foreign relations chief, Catherine Ashton, visited the Gaza Strip, ahead of the Moscow talks. Her visit coincided with militant rocket attack on Israel launched from the salient, which killed a Thai kibbutz worker.

Friday’s one-day talks involve Tony Blair, the Quartet’s envoy to the Middle East, as well as Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general, US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, and Russia’s Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov.

“Thank you for coming, let us now discuss proposals,” Lavrov told the opening of the meeting, according to interfax newsagency.

Late Thursday Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu informed Washington he was prepared to make fresh confidence-building measures, although details of these have not been made public.

However George Mitchell, US special envoy to the Middle East, will now return to the region this weekend after postponing a visit last week because of a diplomatic feud over Israel’s plans to build new housing units.

The announcement of Mitchell’s visit came after Netanyahu telephoned Clinton Thursday to discuss “specific actions that might be taken to improve the atmosphere for progress toward peace,” US State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said in a statement.

Mitchell postponed the visit in the wake of the Israeli announcement on new housing, which came during a visit to Israel last week by US Vice President Joe Biden.