Quarter for Italy meet

United Nations secretary general Ban Ki-moon said key parties trying to promote Middle East peace would meet in Italy later this month.

He gave no details on the date and place but said he expected the Quartet – the UN, the US, the European Union and Russia – to discuss the next steps to promote Israeli-Palestinian peace.

Top-level Quartet meetings are usually attended by foreign ministers and ministers from the Group of Eight major industrialised nations, due to meet in Trieste on June 26 and 27.