Annan Calls for End to the Language of Violence on Mideast
Says silencing guns not enough
By Judy Aita
Washington File United Nations Correspondent
United Nations -- Secretary General Kofi Annan October 19 again
appealed to Palestinians, Israelis, and the international community to
use restraint in talking about the violence in the Middle East.
Returning to U.N. headquarters after participating in the Sharm
el-Sheikh summit October 18, Annan said that "my call for
restraint...for people in using language and the worlds they use is
absolutely important, because language can also be violence."
"It is not enough to still the guns," the secretary general said. "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 the
responsibility to do that."
The General Assembly is holding a special emergency session on the
crisis. The session, which began October 18 and will resume October
20, was requested by the Palestine Observer Mission to the U.N. with
the support of the 114-nation Non-Aligned Movement. It was scheduled
over calls by the United States and Israel to refrain from holding a
potentially inflammatory session so soon after the difficult summit at
Sharm el-Sheikh produced an agreement by Israeli and Palestinian
leaders to halt the bloodshed.
"I think it is legitimate for the Security Council and the General
Assembly to be concerned with what is going on in the region and 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," the secretary general said.
Annan will report on the summit and his peace efforts in the Middle
East to the General Assembly when it resumes in the afternoon of
October 20.
Talking with journalists as he returned to U.N. headquarters, the
secretary general said that October 19 and 20 "will be a crucial
period."
"Sharm el-Sheikh was a new beginning, it was a first step. The real
test is in implementation," Annan said. "And I think they had 48 to 72
hours to demonstrate their seriousness in implementing the agreement."
He expressed the hope that talks will resume in two weeks.
"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 neighbors. And so I think the only way is peace,"
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. But the first
thing is the curb the violence and the killings and save the people
from the tragedy they have lived through the past three weeks," he
said.
(end text)
(Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S.
Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
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