BREAKING NEWS

EU's Mogherini says Mideast 'Quartet' to meet Friday, urge calm

BERLIN - The "Quartet" of Middle East peace mediators will meet in Vienna on Friday to urge Israeli and Palestinian leaders to tone down their rhetoric and calm down the situation on the ground, the EU's top diplomat said on Thursday.
Nine Israelis have been killed in Palestinian stabbings, shootings and vehicle attacks since the start of October, while 48 Palestinians, including 24 attackers, among them children, have been killed by Israeli security forces in response.
"I can announce here that tomorrow in Vienna we will have a Quartet principals meeting," EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini told a joint news conference with German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier in Berlin.
She said she would meet US Secretary of State John Kerry, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and the special envoy of the UN secretary general, "to coordinate messages, to pass a strong message to the parties to calm down the situation on the ground."