MANAMA /Bahrain/, October 18. /TASS/. The situation in the Middle East is on the brink of a large-scale war, although the Islamabad memorandum between the United States and Iran has everything to bring the situation in the Strait of Hormuz back to the diplomatic track, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said.

"We believe that the memorandum still contains everything necessary to shift the situation from its current stage, where it is teetering on the brink of a full-scale war, toward a political and diplomatic path of negotiation," he told a news conference after the 9th round of the Russia-Gulf Cooperation Council Strategic Dialogue.

"It is necessary to eliminate the root causes of what is happening in and around the Strait of Hormuz, including, of course, the implementation of the agreements, which we all welcomed, between the United States and Iran reached within the framework of the so-called Islamabad Memorandum," he added.