Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov stressed the need to return to “joint formulas” to settle the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Following talks on Friday in Moscow with his Palestinian counterpart, Riyad al-Maliki, he ruled out the possibility of reaching an agreement without the “important role of the United States.” Lavrov underlined, however, that Washington “will not succeed alone” in resolving the crisis. The Russian minister appeared to be “commenting on Palestinian calls for a new initiative to bring the situation in the Middle East out of the current stalemate because of recent US decisions and Israeli belligerency,” according to Arab diplomatic sources in Moscow. The sources told Asharq Al-Awsat that the Palestinian side hoped that Russia would employ the momentum it gathered during the recent period by strengthening its presence in the region to present new ideas or initiatives to advance a political solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The diplomat said that Moscow “does not want to rush to put forward ideas before clarifying the essence of the American vision,” referring to what has become known as the “deal of the century”. The Russians repeatedly said they have not been informed of the content or the preparations by Washington in this regard. During a news conference with Maliki, Lavrov said: “We raised the issue of the US’ stance, which has long wanted to show the result of its sole intermediary mission to the global community in the form of some deal of the century.” “No one has seen this deal yet,” he stressed, adding: “It is clear that an agreement cannot be reached without the United States, but the US will not reach an agreement unilaterally either.” “So, it is necessary to return to collective formats and the quartet of international intermediaries [Russia, the US, the UN and the European Union] in close coordination with the League of Arab States,” the Russian foreign minister affirmed. Maliki, for his part, emphasized that the Palestinians rejected “any monopolized role by the United States in the political process because of its full bias towards Israel,” pointing to the importance of “the formation of a multilateral framework to activate the peace process.” He said that his talks with Lavrov dealt with the issue of restoring the unity of the Palestinian ranks and welcomed all Russian efforts “to convince Hamas to abide by the October 2017 agreement and to implement it in order to end the internal Palestinian division and prepare for the presidential and legislative elections.”