RIYADH -- Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal will fly to Moscow on Thursday for two days of talks on the Middle East crisis and the "massacre" of Palestinians, the official SPA news agency reported Thursday.

He will review with President Vladimir Putin and Russian counterpart Igor Ivanov, "The efforts made internationally and by the Arabs to halt the (Israeli) aggression against the Palestinian people," said Riyadh's Ambassador to Moscow, Mohammed Abdul Wali.

"Stopping the butchery of Palestinians by Israeli forces and lifting the military blockade (on the West Bank) are matters of urgency for the United States and Russia, the co-sponsors of the peace process," the envoy told the Saudi Press Agency.

In Moscow, Interfax news agency quoted diplomatic sources as saying Prince Faisal would also meet Energy Minister Igor Yusufov and discuss Iraq, which has stopped exporting oil in protest at the plight of Palestinians.

The trip comes before Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz meets U.S. President George W. Bush in Texas on April 25, AFP reported.

Arab leaders endorsed at the end of March a peace plan promoted by Saudi Arabia offering Israel normalization with the Arab world in exchange for a full withdrawal from land occupied in 1967.

The plan was welcomed in Russia and the United States but Israel launched an offensive on the West Bank on March 29 after a series of Palestinian suicide bombings.