Secretary-General remains hopeful after talks with Arafat, Barak
10 October -- After a series of meetings with top Israeli and Palestinian leaders over the past 24 hours, Secretary-General Kofi Annan said today he was determined to continue working with all parties concerned to break the cycle of violence and resume the peace process.
"I'm hopeful," Mr. Annan told a news conference following his meeting this afternoon with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak in Jerusalem. "I'm optimistic that with goodwill on all sides we can do it. Otherwise I wouldn't have come."
The Secretary-General stressed that he had travelled to the region "to try to see what I can do to work with the leaders to get the situation back on track." Expressing hope that progress would be achieved, Mr. Annan said, "I'm determined to do everything I can, working with Prime Minister Barak and Chairman Arafat, to move forward the process."
During the meeting with the Prime Minister, the Secretary-General emphasized, as he had done earlier with Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat, the threat that continued violence in Israel and the occupied territories could present to the region as a whole, a UN spokesman said today. The two leaders also discussed the capture of three Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah on Saturday. Later in the day, the Secretary-General met with Israeli President Moshe Katsav and Israeli Justice Minister Yossi Beilin.
Prior to his talks in Israel, Mr. Annan met twice with Mr. Arafat. The two leaders first met for about an hour late Monday night in Gaza, but their meeting was interrupted several times so that Mr. Arafat could receive phone calls, including one from United States President Bill Clinton, a spokesman travelling with Mr. Annan said.
The Secretary-General and Mr. Arafat discussed "ways to relax tensions in the area, which appeared to ease slightly on the ground today," the spokesman said in a statement released Monday night. "Despite that easing, the prospect for peace between the Israelis and Palestinians continues to be complex."
Today, the Secretary-General held his second meeting with Mr. Arafat. The Secretary-General also met with Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov in Gaza, and the two were joined briefly by Mr. Arafat for a trilateral meeting.
Meanwhile, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Sadako Ogata, expressed her concern about the violence in the Middle East, particularly the humanitarian aspects of continued conflict and the plight of 4 million Palestinian refugees.
"I am saddened by the human toll of the latest conflict," Mrs. Ogata said. "I hope that the clashes will end soon and leaders in the Middle East will continue their search for peace through negotiations." The High Commissioner also warned that unless a solution is reached to end the violence quickly, she feared that it would have a destabilizing effect on the region and produce an outflow of refugees, while seriously affecting the right of Palestinians to return.
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