(Adds Lavrov's quote in para 6)

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, currently on a visit to Israel, told journalists that the Quartet's decision would be announced in the near future.

"The decision will be announced any minute. The Quartet has finished drawing up a mandate for the new envoy, which will be based on the need to do everything possible to satisfy the real needs of Palestinians, under the Quartet's control," the Russian diplomat said at a joint news conference with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank.

Former Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown, 56, will hold talks with the queen after the outgoing prime minister at Buckingham Palace, at which time the monarch will ask him to form a government.