Mounting Arab concern over Iran’s ambitions in the Middle East has created a new opportunity for peace in the Arab-Israeli conflict, one of the United Nation’s most experienced regional negotiators said ahead of Friday’s quartet meeting in Washington. Terje Roed-Larsen, speaking as head of the influential International Peace Academy but with a long history as a UN and Norwegian mediator, told the Financial Times there had been a flurry of Arab diplomacy driven by a fear of Iran and the sense that ‘a new peace process would be incredibly helpful to stabilise the region’. While the crises in Lebanon and Iraq, and over Iran’s nuclear ambitions, presented no clear answers, there was a ‘very broad consensus’ over a two-state solution to the Palestinian-Israeli issue. ‘In a way, it is easier to address this than the other issues,’ he said. He also argued that many in the region now thought Israel was in a defensive posture, compared with Iran’s more aggressive stance. The meeting of the quartet – the UN, European Union, Russia and the US – could be a ‘launching pad for a new process’, he said. Angela Merkel, German chancellor, also intended to ‘build on […]