Palestinian official calls for adding China to Mideast Quartet

A Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) official on Tuesday called for expanding the Mideast Quartet peacemaking group to include China. Speaking to reporters here in the West Bank city of Ramallah, Yasser Abd Rabbo, a member of the PLO's Executive Committee, said the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) will demand the Quartet to add more members, including China. He slammed the inactive role played by the current members of the Quartet, including the United Nations, United States, the European Union and Russia, saying they did not "engage effectively " in their political role. As for Washington's efforts to revive the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, Abd Rabbo said that the Quartet's role is weakening by confining the task of resuming the peace talks to the United States. He stressed that the Quartet should press Israel to recognize the two-state solution, with a Palestinian state on the territories that Israel has occupied in the 1967 war. "Without Israel's commitment to the 1967 lines, the negotiations would be used as a cover and justification for the expansion of Israeli settlements," he said.