Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov Thursday said there was a serious risk that the Palestine-Israel conflict will become regional, and Russia is in contact with Türkiye over the matter, media outlets reported.
Speaking to reporters during a news conference in Pyongyang where the Russian minister was on an official visit, Lavrov said they were ready to cooperate with Türkiye for de-escalation of the conflict.
“We are ready to discuss any constructive proposals. Türkiye’s initiative is clearly dictated by the desire to achieve de-escalation. We advocate approaches to the issue that will be balanced and will not be imposed on one of the sides by the other. Turkish initiative appears to be a balanced one,” he was quoted saying.
Türkiye is a staunch advocate of a two-state solution to the conflict which aggravated since early October and reached the level of war crime when an Israeli airstrike killed hundreds of civilians in a hospital in Gaza which is besieged by the Israeli army and under heavy blockade.
Meanwhile, Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan announced on Monday that they proposed a guarantorship model to resolve the conflict.
“We put forth the main idea of guarantorship, the systematic of these needs to be discussed separately. This is a proposal, if there are better proposals we will evaluate them. However, what is important is to recognize this crisis as a means to take a step toward realizing the two-state solution and to bring lasting peace to the region,” Fidan told reporters on Monday, indicating that regional countries must take on responsibility for the issue.
“Nothing is being done against Israel usurping the land of Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank and elsewhere, its refusal to allow a two-state solution, and its efforts to change the status of Jerusalem. In other words, the problem is identified, a large consensus is created around the problem, but it cannot be transformed into an attitude,” Fidan said, indicating that since no concrete stance is being shown toward Israel, it continues its acts and does not change its attitude.
“Countries in the region, the Arab League and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) should attach importance to this. We even go further and suggest that the countries that will be guarantors to the Palestinian side should be from the region. This includes Türkiye. Other countries should be guarantors for Israel. Once an agreement is reached that both parties agree on, the guarantor countries should assume responsibility for fulfilling its requirements,” he said.
