The United States and the European Union are standing in the way of real peace in the Middle East with their "destructive measures" and are sidelining the resolution of the Palestinian issue in favor of pushing for an Arab-Israeli normalization, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said during a meeting of the UN Security Council discussing Palestine on Monday.

The Foreign Minister also said that both powers are harming the Middle East Quartet, which is comprised of the United Nations, European Union, United States, and Russia and has the mandate to mediate ME peace talks and support Palestine's economic and institutional development.

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"The United States and the European Union continue [with their] destructive attempts to replace real peace with some economic half-measures, and to advance Arab Israeli normalization in circumvention of the fair resolution of the Palestinian issue and in circumvention of the Arab Peace Initiative. The Middle East quartet of international mediators has fallen victim to that. Washington is now claiming the role of a single sponsor of the Middle East settlement process," Lavrov said.

“Americans and Europeans are using the Ukrainian topic, so as to use blackmail threats and bring over countries to their side and distract their attention from the Middle East and other regions of the Global South,” he added.

Russia's top diplomat called on the UN's chief Antonio Guterres to "pay close attention" regarding the implementation of UNSC resolutions in the Middle East region.

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"We call on the leadership of the Secretariat and the Secretary-General himself to pay close attention to making sure that Security Council resolutions are implemented - especially those which have to do with the Middle East settlement and to discharge his responsibilities," Lavrov said, adding that he needs "to be more active as a moderator of the [Middle East] Quartet on without waiting for permission to be given to him."

“The Middle East is undergoing a deep transformation, which is evolving in a very contradictory way. More than ever before we need to improve relations among states in the region, stabilize in areas of conflict and improve efforts politically and diplomatically to resolve them," the top Russian diplomat concluded.

In February, Russian envoy to the UN Dmitry Polyansky slammed the US for vetoing any resolution in favor of Palestinians at the UN Security Council.

The diplomat explained then that any just resolutions in favor of Palestine would harm the Arab-Israeli normalization initiative promoted by the US.

"We regret that this is something that is being pushed forward by Washington in the UN Security Council as well, where the US is doing everything it can to ensure that any decisions that are necessary for the Palestinians are not taken," Polyansky said at a session of the UN Security Council. 

"We view attempts to usurp the external support of the contacts of parties [Palestine] as counterproductive and something that runs counter to the fundamental interests of the two peoples. We believe the US' actions blocking all ways to assist the Middle East peace process to be particularly destructive and the desire to change the situation by using economics as destructive too, to substitute real political peace with an economic one," he added.