Islam Times - Mideast Quartet ineffective: Arab League chief

Islam Times - Arab League chief has described the so-called Middle East Quartet as ineffective, saying Arab countries must approach the UN to pressure Israel into withdrawing from occupied territories.

The UN Security Council says "let's have more committees... to follow up this, at close rooms, and nobody knows what is happening and nothing happens and that is the Quartet," Nabil al-Arabi said in an interview with the AFP on Monday.

The Quartet, comprising the United States, Russia, the United Nations and the European Union, was set up in 2002 to promote talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority on establishing a Palestinian state next to Israel.

"I expect that the Arabs go to the Security Council very soon and say we don't want all this. You have 242, which said territories occupied have to be de-occupied. Let's carry out that," he said referring to an UN resolution.

The Arab League Ministerial Committee will meet in Qatar on Sunday to reevaluate the Israel-Palestine peace process and review the Arab Peace Initiative in which Arab countries establish diplomatic relations with Israel in turn for Tel Aviv’s withdrawal from Palestinian lands and an equitable solution for Palestinian refugees.