Israel and the Palestinians should open direct negotiations over "the political horizon of Palestine," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said ahead of a big power meeting on the Middle East on Wednesday.

The European Union, the U.S., the UN and Russia convene Wednesday in Berlin in search of a way to advance stalled Middle East peace efforts amid strong skepticism about the Palestinians' planned unity government.

"We will actively support direct contacts between (Palestinian Authority Chairman) Mahmoud Abbas and Ehud Olmert," Lavrov said in an interview with the government daily Rossiskaya Gazeta.

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"Contacts that would not deal solely with the opening of one checkpoint or another checkpoint, but aim to negotiate what the quartet has called the political horizon of Palestine."

Foreign ministers from the European Union, the United States, the United Nations and Russia will meet as a quartet in Berlin to work out differences over how to deal with the new Palestinian unity government.

Lavrov said it was important to avoid mutual reproaches and minor disputes over incursions and shootings.

"These are petty provocations - petty compared with the key task of forming a Palestinian state," Lavrov added.

Lavrov also said Russia wanted the quartet to back the coalition deal between Abbas and militant group Hamas and lift economic sanctions.

The United States advocates a more cautious approach of continued sanctions and isolating Hamas.

The meeting of the Quartet of Middle East peacemakers gives U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice a chance to report to her partners on her three-way summit Monday with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas.

Germany, which holds the EU presidency, has pushed hard for the Quartet to take a key role in encouraging a revival of the peace process. The gathering at the German Foreign Ministry is the group's second meeting this month, following a February 2 session in Washington.

Monday's summit concluded with no new agreements and a pledge to keep talking. The United States, which had pushed for the session, said it was an accomplishment merely to hold such a get-together for the first time in six years.