MOSCOW. July 2 (Interfax) - Russia is preparing the third session of the Russian-Arab Cooperation Forum, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Thursday.
"Our relations are developing consistently. We held the second session of the Russian-Arab Cooperation Forum in Khartoum last December. We will be preparing the third session of this forum and have already started this work," Lavrov said at a meeting with League of Arab States (LAS) Secretary-General Nabil Elaraby.
The agenda of Russian-LAS cooperation is "very broad and includes economic and humanitarian projects and, certainly, dialogue on the region's key political problems," he said.
Elaraby assured Lavrov that Arab countries are earnestly interested in supporting this forum.
"We will do our utmost for the third session to be held by the end of this year, and we are deciding on the dates now," he said.
Lavrov said that problems in the Middle East are "not decreasing, which includes Syria, Libya, Iraq, Yemen" and others.
"And, of course, [this includes] the Middle East peace process, whose condition really worries us, considering the utter deadlock that the Palestinian-Israeli negotiations have reached," Lavrov said.