International experts and public figures will gather in Malta on December 9-10 to try to find new approaches to the settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The forum, entitled Scenarios and Models of Middle East settlement, will be the second Valdai conference on the theme.

The organizers include Russian News and Information Agency RIA Novosti, the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy.

“Tensions in the Middle East now have a systematic nature and contribute to the development of terrorism. That is why the international community pays great attention to this region,” Mikhail Margelov, who heads the Russian upper house of parliament’s foreign affairs committee, said.

“The situation in the Middle East is changing rapidly and not always in a direction positive for the development of the peace process,” Margelov, who will take part in the forum, said.

More than 50 prominent experts on Middle East from Russia, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, the Palestinian Authority, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Britain, the United States, France and Sweden will participate in the discussion.

Yevgeny Primakov, the head of Russia’s Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the country’s former prime minister, as well as Jorge Sampaio, the UN High Representative for the Alliance of Civilizations and former Portuguese president, will also attend the talks.

The conference will take place after direct peace talks between the Israelis and the Palestinians came to a standstill over the issue of continuing Israeli settlement construction in the occupied Palestinian territories.

“It seems to me that at this moment it’s very important to have people coming together in a conference like this and talking about what can be done and what ideas can be generated, since the official talks seem very close to being stalled. It is a moment when new ideas need to be generated, or at least new political concerns need to be generated,” Harold Saunders, former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs and current President of the International Institute for Sustained Dialogue, told RIA Novosti ahead of the talks.

MOSCOW, December 7 (RIA Novosti)