OREANDA-NEWS. March 29, 2011. A meeting was held in Moscow between Foreign Minister of the Russian Federation Sergey Lavrov and Prime Minister of the State of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu who is in the Russian capital for a working visit.

During the conversation, an exchange of views took place relating to the Israeli-Palestinian settlement, taking into consideration, in particular, the current major developments in the Middle East and Northern Africa, as well as a number of other pressing international and regional issues, including the situation concerning Iran’s nuclear programme.

It was stressed on the Russian part that intensifying efforts towards resuming the Israeli-Palestinian peace process and promoting a comprehensive just peace in the Middle East will contribute to ensuring the regional stability. The sides unanimously expressed a strong condemnation of manifestations of terrorism that claim innocent human lives.

Russia reaffirmed its position of principle in favor of resolving all the doubts concerning the nature of Iran’s nuclear programme exclusively by peaceful means, the preparedness of our country to pursue efforts towards achieving this goal.

Benjamin Netanyahu set out Israeli administration’s view of current developments in the region and perspectives of the resumption of the Israeli-Palestinian talks. He expressed appreciation for Russia’s contribution to the Middle-East settlement.

In the course of review of the topical issues on the Russian-Israeli agenda, the sides expressed satisfaction about the substantive nature of high-level and top-level political dialogue, the growing tendency towards reestablishing pre-crisis bilateral turnover and the expanding high-tech cooperation.