The international community, including Russia, has lost interest on holding a conference on the Middle East in Moscow, former prime minister Yevgeny Primakov, the head of the Russian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said Thursday.

The conference proposed by Russia in 2005 initially won worldwide support, including among Palestinians, Israeli and the Quartet on the Middle East – the UN, EU, Russia and the United States.

“However, interest in the conference quickly plummeted, including in Russia, after it became clear that there would be no concrete proposals to discuss at such a conference,” Primakov said.

He described the current situation in the Middle East peace process as a stalemate and said that one of the reasons for this was the declining role of the Quartet, which “has essentially reconciled itself to the fact that the United States has usurped its mediation mission in the Middle East peace process.”

Primakov, one of the foremost Russian experts on the Middle East, shared these thoughts in his opening address at the international conference entitled Scenarios and Models of the Middle East Settlement. The conference was organized by RIA Novosti, the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Oriental Studies and the Russian Council for Foreign and Defense Policy.

The conference of the Valdai International Discussion Club in Malta December 9-10 was attended by over 50 experts from three continents.

VALETTA (Malta), December 9 (RIA Novosti)