NEW YORK - United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Thursday urged his partners in the Middle East Quartet of peace negotiators to get serious in solving problems rather than making statements.

UN spokesman Michelle Montas said that Ban "hopes that the quartet will seriously engage with the key issues that have a direct impact on the situation on the ground, going beyond mere statements."

"He is fully aware that, within the region and beyond, many are looking at the quartet to be more energetic in its efforts than it has been at times to break the current impasse in the peace process," Montas said.

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"He believes the quartet should reach out to the parties and also other key regional partners for a more systematic dialogue, and involvement in the quartet's deliberations."

The quartet will meet in Washington on Friday. The meeting will be attended by EU High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy Javier Solana, EU Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner and German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, whose country holds the rotating EU Presidency.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice are the other participants.

It will be Ban's first meeting with quartet members since he became UN secretary general. Other members include the European Union, the US and Russia, which have been laboring unsuccessfully for years to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.