West Asia quartet peace mediators delay meeting -UN

UNITED NATIONS, Jan 11 (Reuters) Plans for a meeting of the quartet of major-power West Asia mediators later this month have been indefinitely postponed due to a scheduling conflict, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said today.

The quartet of the United States, Russia, the United Nations and the European Union, seeking to resuscitate the near-dead Middle East peace process, had tentatively been set to meet January 25 in Paris on the sidelines of an international conference on the reconstruction of Lebanon.

''But we found there was a scheduling conflict, and we are now pushing to have that quartet meeting convene as soon as possible,'' Ban told a news conference at UN headquarters.

''It is very important to re-energize the process at this time, to help facilitate the peace process in the West Asia,'' Ban said.

He was consulting with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and EU officials on a new date and meeting plans, but he could not yet say when or where the quartet meeting would be rescheduled, he said.

Russian UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin called the delay ''regrettable'' and said Moscow was not to blame for the scheduling conflict.

The Russian foreign minister ''was very eager to have this meeting of the quartet. It is our position that the quartet must be more active and meet more regularly and meet with the important actors in this conflict,'' Churkin told reporters.

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