President Vladimir Putin stressed Monday that Russia and Italy were both in favor of enlarging the number of countries involved in the Middle East peace process.
"The base of mediating countries must be expanded," ITAR-TASS quoted Putin as saying during a Kremlin meeting with Italian counterpart Carlo Azeglio Ciampi.
Putin added that "international control, with the agreement of all sides involved, must be strengthened," according to RIA-Novosti.
Ciampi for his part said the two leaders also discussed the possibility of stationing more international observers in the region.
"We spoke about the need to unite all efforts to restart the peace process, and also possibly about the work of international observers at the scene of the conflict," ITAR-TASS quoted Ciampi as saying.
US officials earlier Monday asserted that Washington had won assurances that Russia would not support a UN resolution calling for the deployment of some 2,000 unarmed observers in the Palestinian territories.
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright told her Russian counterpart Igor Ivanov in a meeting late Sunday that such a resolution, called for by the Palestinians, "would not be acceptable to both parties" and therefore not conducive to peace.
The Palestinian observer to the United Nations, Nasser Al-Kidwa, last week urged the security council to vote for a draft resolution calling for stationing observers in the West Bank, Gaza and Jerusalem.
But Israel has rejected the resolution, and the United States, one of five permanent members with a power of veto in the council, said it would reject any proposal that did not have the support of both sides.
Russia, along with the United States, is a co-sponsor of the moribund Middle East peace process, although its influence in the region has waned considerably in recent years.
In a bid to strengthen Moscow's position, Putin met with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and had a telephone conversation with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak last Friday.
Putin then managed to extract a pledge from the Palestinian leader and Barak to work together to end almost two months of fighting that has left some 280 people dead -- MOSCOW (AFP)
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