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Middle East

My Lords, the noble Lord is correct. This role being assigned to the United States has been welcomed. It is important that the United States be unequivocally engaged in the implementation of a road map which, at certain points, it had appeared sceptical about and distanced itself from. The task is clear: it is to monitor the implementation the road map. I do not think that that task undermines or limits the role of the quartet or the European Union in many other aspects of this process as it goes forward. I look at this as good news and a plus, not as a zero-sum game where this US role reduces Europe’s role.