Secretary-General renews call for restraint to calm Middle East tensions
19 October -- Secretary-General Kofi Annan today reiterated his call for restraint by all parties in the Middle East and elsewhere to help reduce tensions in the region and to pave the wave for a resumption of peace talks.
"It's not enough to still the guns: we have to calm the situation and I have appealed to the leaders and the people in the region to do that, and I think we all have a responsibility to do that," the Secretary-General told the press at UN Headquarters in New York this afternoon.
Asked about the impact that statements in the Security Council and the General Assembly can have on the situation, the Secretary-General said that it was legitimate for the two bodies to be concerned with what was going on in the region. "I am glad that they are engaged, but we should all take the necessary steps and pool our collective effort to calm the situation and I hope this is what will happen," he said.
Noting that the summit in Sharm El-Sheikh was a new beginning and "the first step," the Secretary-General said that the real test was in implementation. He said that the parties' seriousness in implementing the agreement would be tested in the "crucial" period "between now and tomorrow evening" and expressed the hope that within two weeks the situation would be calm enough for them to decide to come together for talks.
"Whether we like it or not, in the end there has to be peace, they have to talk to each other, they have to live together; they are condemned to be neighbours," Mr. Annan said. "Without peace there can be no security and we really need to do whatever we can to bring the parties back to talks."
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