Russian President Vladimir Putin has sent a message of greetings to the participants of the Arab Summit, which has opened in Tunis today.

The message reads in part:

"Each meeting of leaders of the Arab world is a remarkable and noticeable event in international politics. Your present summit is being held in the conditions when the situation in the Middle East is overburdened with many not easy problems and dramatic events. We expect that the decisions adopted by you will exert a serious and positive influence on further developments in the situation within the region.

"In the first place, this concerns the prospects for achieving a comprehensive Middle East settlement. Russia notes with concern that the provisions of the roadmap, endorsed by both the parties in conflict and having international legal status, for a long time has not been implemented in practice now. Therefore concerted efforts are required at present to improve the situation and foster the process of the implementation of the roadmap as an unalternative program for settlement. Furthermore, no unilateral steps should predetermine a final settlement, which can only be achieved via direct talks and mutually acceptable agreements between the parties on a firm international legal basis, as set forth, above all, in UN Security Council Resolutions 242, 338, 1397 and 1515.

"We presume that the roadmap has opened up a real prospect of establishing a lasting and just peace in the region, in which the occupation of the Arab lands will be terminated and Palestine and Israel will coexist as independent states within secure and internationally recognized borders, having got rid of a constant fear of terrorism and any other forms of violence. We are in favor of overcoming the long stagnation on the Syrian and Lebanese tracks of the peace process. Without the return to Syria of the Golan Heights and without solving the issues between Israel and Lebanon, a comprehensive settlement cannot be achieved in the Middle East.

"Russia will continue to cooperate actively with its partners in the Quartet of International Mediators, the UN, the United States and the European Union, in the interest of promoting the roadmap. I express the hope that the decisions of your Summit will contribute to implementing this plan, which incorporates key elements of the Arab peace initiative endorsed in Beirut in 2002.

"The unresolved character of the situation in Iraq remains a factor of destabilization in the region. Russia, like the Arab countries, sees the future Iraq as a sovereign, democratic and prosperous state living in peace with its neighbors, and firmly stands for the preservation of the territorial integrity of the country and the observance of the rights and freedoms of all the ethnoses living there and of all the confessions. We consider that the political process in Iraq, currently only at its initial phase after the adoption of an interim constitution, needs firm reliance on all the sections of the population, as also the widest possible support from the international community under the aegis of the UN. It is the United Nations that should be the Iraqis' main partner in the task of reviving their country after the end of the period of occupation.

"Russia is sincerely interested in the stability and prosperity of the states of the Arab world and in the successful search by the countries and peoples themselves of this vast area for ways to accelerate their development in the social, economic, political and humanitarian fields. We are ready to support the initiatives coming from the region that take into account its specifics and interests and the necessity of solving the accumulated problems.

"I would like to reaffirm the invariable disposition of Russia towards the expansion of constructive cooperation with the members of the League of Arab States with a view to ensuring peace, security and sustainable development in the Middle East and in North Africa, and to strengthening international stability as a whole."


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© Publication of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation.