US says prepared for Moscow hosting Palestinian-Israeli talks

The United States welcomed on Monday the potential idea of Moscow hosting Palestinian-Israeli talks in the future.
"At an appropriate time when enough progress would be made, it might make sense to have the Quartet join with the parties in Moscow. A date has not been set, because we are not there yet. But we are obviously prepared for that if we get to that point, and we hope we do get to that point", said State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland in a press briefing.
"If we have had proposals on security and borders put forward by the parties and we are moving along, then the Quartet as a whole and its support for that will have borne some fruit. And under those circumstances, we would be prepared to have a conference in Moscow, if it could help the parties and if the parties were prepared to go", she added.
US Consul General in Jerusalem met with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas last Friday as Defense Secretary Leon Panetta met with Israeli leaders to urge them to restart talks with the Palestinian side, ahead of another Quartet meeting this week.
"We continue to meet with the Palestinian side and urge them to come back to the table without preconditions", noted Nuland.
"We continue to believe that the Quartet has put forward a good timetable, an appropriate road map for these parties to begin working directly together, and that that is the best way to get down to brass tacks and try to get to a Palestinian state living in peace with Israel", she added.
Nuland affirmed that the US administration was "continuing intensive consultations with the Congress on this money because we feel that US support for Palestinians institution-building is a vital piece of what we are trying to do here".
"We are trying to prepare the ground for a successful and stable peace. This money goes to establishing and strengthening the institutions of a future Palestinian state, building a more democratic and stable and secure region", she added.
Nuland further noted that this money is "not only in the interest of the Palestinians. It is in US interest and it is also in Israeli interest, and we would like to see it go forward".
"The concern would be that the Palestinians would not have the money to fund their police, to fund their civil servants that provide services, to continue to strengthen their own security forces that maintain peace in conjunction with Israel", she concluded.

KUNA