BRUSSELS (EJP)---The Quartet of Mideast Peace Process mediators are to meet in Munich, Germany, on February 5, on the sidelines of the annual Munich Security Conference, EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said this week.

The Quartet is made up of Russia, the United States, the United Nations and the European Union.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, US State Secretary Hillary Clinton and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will attend the meeting with Ashton, who is also European Commission Vice President, and Quartet Mideast envoy Tony Blair.

Direct talks between the Israelis and Palestinians resumed last September after a 20-month halt but they stopped in December after a nine-month moratorium on Israeli construction in the West Bank was not extended.

A German spokesman said his country hoped the Munich meeting would provide an 'urgently required impulse' for Middle East peace negotiations.