RAMALLAH (West Bank) — Visiting Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov yesterday criticised Israeli settlement activity in the West Bank and called for an end to the “unacceptable” blockade of the Gaza Strip. Following talks with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah, Lavrov also said Russia would soon set a date for proposed peace conference Moscow wants to host and which he is promoting on his Middle East tour. “We are worried by the Israeli settlement activity and urge Israel to end it,” Lavrov said at a news conference with Abbas. Israel had pledged at a US-sponsored conference in November to abide by the 2003 international peace roadmap, which calls for a freeze of settlement activity. Lavrov also called on Israel to lift the crippling sanctions it imposed on Hamas-run Gaza in January in a bid to end almost daily rocket fire from the impoverished Palestinian enclave. “The blockade imposed against Gaza is unacceptable and it must be ended so the Palestinian people can live normally,” he said. Lavrov, who earlier travelled to Syria and Israel, has revived proposals for a Moscow gathering as a follow-up to the November conference in Annapolis, Maryland. A date for the conference “will be fixed in the near future,” Lavrov said in Ramallah. A senior Israeli official expressed reservations over the proposed Moscow gathering. “Out of diplomatic courtesy, we didn’t reject the plan, but the truth is, we are not enthusiastic,” the official said, asking not to be named. “There have been enough international conferences. What is needed is to move forward in direct negotiations with the Palestinian Authority,” he said. In Washington, a spokesman for Condoleezza Rice confirmed the US secretary of state had discussed Russia’s proposal during her visit to Moscow this week. “The main objective is to help the ongoing talks to create a positive atmosphere that will allow the peace process to reach a conclusion,” Lavrov said in Tel Aviv on Thursday. In Damascus, Lavrov had met Hamas supremo Khaled Meshaal and stressed that reconciliation between the Islamist movement and Fatah, led by Abbas, was key to solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. His statement coincided with an announcement that the latest attempt to heal the rift between the Palestinian arch-foes ended in failure on Thursday. — AFP