Quartet holds conference call over Gaza crisis
(Adds end of conference call, participant details)
WASHINGTON, Dec 30 (Reuters) - Foreign ministers from the quartet of Middle East peace brokers consulted by telephone on Tuesday on how to end the crisis in Gaza, U.S. and U.N. officials said.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana were on the conference call, said the officials, who gave no details on the content of the call or whether a plan was agreed upon to end violence.
French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, whose nation holds the EU rotating presidency until Wednesday, and EU External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner were also on the call, said U.N. spokeswoman Marie Okabe from New York.
France has proposed a 48-hour ceasefire to allow aid into the Gaza Strip, which has been hit by four days of Israeli attacks in retaliation for rocket fire by Hamas militants into the Jewish state.
Okabe said Ban asked foreign ministers of the quartet, which consists of the United States, EU, Russia and the UN, to hold telephone consultations after he released a statement on Monday urging world leaders to do more to stop the violence.
Russian news agencies quoted Moscow's envoy in Middle East talks, Sergei Yakovlev, as saying that the foreign ministers would look at ways to "halt fire in the spirit of U.N. Security Council's decisions."
State Department spokesman Gordon Duguid said earlier Rice had made about a dozen calls over the past 24 hours to discuss Gaza, speaking to foreign minsters from Israel and Saudi Arabia to Britain, as well as Jordan's King Abdullah and others.
"She's working extremely hard to try and get both sides to agree that a ceasefire can be reestablished and that that ceasefire can be fully respected," Duguid told reporters.
Israel has said its military action into Hamas-ruled Gaza could last for weeks. Medical officials put Palestinian casualties since Saturday at 383 dead and more than 800 wounded. Four Israelis have been killed since the operation began.
(Reporting by Sue Pleming, additional reporting by Moscow and U.N. bureaux, Editing by Frances Kerry and Cynthia Osterman)
WASHINGTON, Dec 30 (Reuters) - Foreign ministers from the quartet of Middle East peace brokers consulted by telephone on Tuesday on how to end the crisis in Gaza, U.S. and U.N. officials said.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana were on the conference call, said the officials, who gave no details on the content of the call or whether a plan was agreed upon to end violence.
French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, whose nation holds the EU rotating presidency until Wednesday, and EU External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner were also on the call, said U.N. spokeswoman Marie Okabe from New York.
France has proposed a 48-hour ceasefire to allow aid into the Gaza Strip, which has been hit by four days of Israeli attacks in retaliation for rocket fire by Hamas militants into the Jewish state.
Okabe said Ban asked foreign ministers of the quartet, which consists of the United States, EU, Russia and the UN, to hold telephone consultations after he released a statement on Monday urging world leaders to do more to stop the violence.
Russian news agencies quoted Moscow's envoy in Middle East talks, Sergei Yakovlev, as saying that the foreign ministers would look at ways to "halt fire in the spirit of U.N. Security Council's decisions."
State Department spokesman Gordon Duguid said earlier Rice had made about a dozen calls over the past 24 hours to discuss Gaza, speaking to foreign minsters from Israel and Saudi Arabia to Britain, as well as Jordan's King Abdullah and others.
"She's working extremely hard to try and get both sides to agree that a ceasefire can be reestablished and that that ceasefire can be fully respected," Duguid told reporters.
Israel has said its military action into Hamas-ruled Gaza could last for weeks. Medical officials put Palestinian casualties since Saturday at 383 dead and more than 800 wounded. Four Israelis have been killed since the operation began.
(Reporting by Sue Pleming, additional reporting by Moscow and U.N. bureaux, Editing by Frances Kerry and Cynthia Osterman)
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