he Quartet of international peace mediators will be meeting in Washington today to discuss the stalled Middle East peace process. The Quartet leaders -- U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov have already called for the resumption of Israeli-Palestinian talks and a framework agreement by the end of 2012.

UN Riyadh Mansour said he was hopeful that the Quartet would be able to break the impasse so that stalled talks can be resumed.

The last Quartet summit took place in September at U.N. headquarters around the same time that Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, submitted an application for full Palestinian membership. The move couldn’t sail through Security Council because of a US veto.

Palestinians have been insisting on a freeze on new settlements by Israel and return to border positions of 1967 for the resumption of peace talks. Israel says the talks can resume only without any pre conditions.