MOSCOW, December 14 (RIA Novosti) - Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov left for New York on Sunday to attend a Mideast Quartet meeting and a UN Security Council session on the Mideast peace process and fight against piracy off Somalia.

The Quartet of international Mideast mediators - the United States, European Union, United Nations and Russia - is expected to hold a meeting of foreign ministers at the UN headquarters on Monday to discuss the Palestinian -Israeli peace process.

Apart from Lavrov, the meeting will be attended by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, UN chief Ban Ki-moon and European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana.

After the meeting, the Quartet is expected to confer with foreign ministers of the League of Arab States.

On Tuesday, the UN Security Council will hold a meeting to discuss a draft resolution on the Middle East peace process submitted on Saturday by the Russian and U.S. delegations.

The talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, launched by U.S. President George W. Bush in November last year at a conference in Annapolis, Maryland, have been stalled by the outbreak of violence in the Middle East and disputes over the construction of Jewish settlements and the future status of Jerusalem.