UNITED NATIONS, December 16. /TASS/. Russia calls on the mediators to focus on efforts to find a negotiated solution to the problem of disarming Palestinian groups and withdrawing Israeli forces from the Gaza Strip, Russian First Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations Dmitry Polyansky said.
"We call on the mediators to focus on the search for a comprehensive negotiated solution to the problem of disarming Palestinian groups and withdrawing Israeli units from Gaza. In the past two years, the world has been watching in terror attempts to resolve the problem by force. Now it is time for real diplomacy on the ground that requires compromises and silence rather than loud statements," he said at a meeting of the UN Security Council on the Middle East settlement.
According to the Russian diplomat, there is no clarity about which countries are willing to take part in the international stabilization force in Gaza. "We think this is quite an expected situation. It's one thing to send specialists to a peacekeeping mission who will monitor the ceasefire, engage in deconflicting and helping form Palestinian security forces. But it's quite a different thing to deploy units that will be tasked to try to compel Palestinian fighters to surrender arms," he said. "Such a mission risks turning the international stabilization force into a party to the conflict with all the consequences that come with it. And this would amplify dramatically the security risks for foreign contingents that would be deployed there."
