MOSCOW, May 28 (RIA Novosti) - U.S. President Barack Obama face demanding and complicated games of political chess as he tries to advance Palestinian-Israeli peace talks, a senior Russian senator told RIA Novosti on Thursday.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is due to meet Obama in Washington on Thursday. Obama has pushed for a two-state solution to the conflict, but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called for a tougher stance toward the Palestinians, in contrast to his predecessor Ehud Olmert's support for Palestinian statehood.
"Barack Obama and his team are about to play complex political Middle East chess games," said Mikhail Margelov, who heads the upper house of the Russian parliament's international affairs committee. "However, in these games, Obama will clearly outline his key policy."
"The need to set up two states - an Arab and a Jewish one - cannot be doubted. The implementation of the relevant UN resolutions, the role of the [Mideast] Quartet and the need to move toward a Mideast settlement under the auspices of the UN cannot be doubted either," Margelov went on.
Russia is the only member of the Quartet of Mideast peace negotiators that negotiates with the Palestinian group Hamas, which has controlled the Gaza Strip enclave since June 2007. Two of the other three mediators, the United States and the European Union, have labeled the group, which won Palestinian parliamentary elections in 2006, a terrorist organization. The fourth mediator is the United Nations.
