OCCUPIED JERUSALEM: The Mideast Quartet meets Saturday in a bid to revive Israeli-Palestinian talks, as Israel fears for its peace treaty with Egypt and the Palestinians seek international recognition for statehood. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton are to convene in Munich, Germany to help “find a solution to the present deadlock,” as Ashton has said. Talks between Israel and the Palestinians, relaunched on Sept. 2 after a long hiatus, fell apart weeks afterward after Israel refused to renew a temporary ban on building settlements in the West Bank. The Palestinian leadership refuses to resume negotiations as long as Israel builds on land wanted for a Palestinian state. In a statement Thursday, prominent Palestinian parliamentarian Hanan Ashrawi appealed for “a qualitative shift in the way the Quartet does business.” “It is far too late for the Quartet to simply issue statements without enactment or intervention, and to repeat the mantra of a return to bilateral negotiations,” she said. Paris will host a new international donor conference in June for a Palestinian state, ministers from donor countries and the Quartet said following talks in the French capital Thursday. Meanwhile, Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad said the Palestinian Authority will ask for substantially less foreign aid from a donor conference this year than in the past and hopes to wean itself off budget assistance by 2013. Access to Al-Aqsa restricted Access to Occupid Jerusalem's flashpoint Al-Aqsa Mosque compound was restricted Friday in a bid prevent demonstrations in support of the Egyptian uprising after Muslim prayers, police said.
