MOSCOW - A top Palestinian envoy on Tuesday urged Russia to help press for an Israeli military pullout from Palestinian territories, while Russia's foreign minister said he was disturbed that the withdrawal has lagged.

"We are hoping that together with friendly Russia we will be able to give a new impetus to the peace process in the Middle East, to make Israel withdraw all troops from the Palestinian territories and return to the track of peace," Nabil Shaath, a close aide to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, said during a visit to Moscow, according to the ITAR-Tass news agency.

Shaath welcomed Russia's mediation efforts and thanked Moscow for humanitarian aid sent to Palestinian areas in recent weeks. Russia is an official co-sponsor of the Mideast peace process but it has played a far smaller role than the United States.

Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov met with Shaath on Tuesday morning. Ivanov will meet in Washington on Thursday with U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and European Union representatives to discuss Mideast peace efforts.

"We are disturbed by the fact that the resolutions of the U.N. Security Council are not being fully implemented, that Israeli troops have not been pulled out of the Palestinian territories and that the situation around Yasser Arafat has not been unblocked," Ivanov said at Tuesday's meeting.

"The grave humanitarian situation on the Palestinian territories evokes anxiety," he added.

Ivanov also urged Israel to allow unfettered access to U.N. investigators looking into violence at the Jenin refugee camp, according to a Foreign Ministry statement. Israel decided Tuesday not to cooperate with the U.N. inquiry for now, defying a call by U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan to allow his team to begin working immediately.