Mideast quartet, G8 call on Israel to freeze settlements

TRIESTE, Italy, (AFP/Reuters) - Pressure grew on Israel Friday to take concrete steps for peace as both the
diplomatic quartet and the Group of Eight called for the Jewish state to halt West Bank settlements.
“We are urging Israeli authorities to stop settlements including natural (demographic) growth,” UN
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told a news conference.
“This will be the first beginning to make sure all our proposals are implemented,” he said.
The quartet - the European Union, Russia, the United States and the United Nations - met in the northeastern
Italian city of Trieste to try to jumpstart the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.
Just hours earlier the Group of Eight leading world powers, also meeting in Trieste, made the same appeal,
calling “on both parties to fulfil their obligations under the roadmap, including a freeze on settlement activity.”
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who attended both talks in Trieste, said: “We want to achieve
full-fledged resumption of direct negotiations between the parties themselves on all tracks.”
The quartet’s declaration also called for “an unequivocal end to violence and terrorism,” calling on the
Palestinian Authority to “continue to make every effort to improve law and order and to fight violent extremism.”
Ban, noting the change of government in both Israel and the US this year, said: “We are trying very hard to seize
on the very favourable political atmosphere” following US President Barack Obama’s Cairo speech, which he
described as “quite a historic and powerful statement.”
The foreign ministers from Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States
reiterated support for the creation of a Palestinian state “living in peace with Israel and its other neighbours