UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 13 (UPI) -- The U.N. secretary-general says leaders in the Middle East see recent violence in the region as a "wake up call" and asked for redoubled peace efforts.
Speaking to reporters Wednesday at U.N. World Headquarters in New York, Annan discussed simmering violence in the Middle East and Sudan.
During his recent trip to the Middle East, intended to help implement the U.N. Security Council-brokered cease-fire, the region's leaders expressed a strong desire to resolve the many tensions that threaten to tear apart the Middle East.
"Throughout my visit, almost every leader I met felt that Lebanon was a wake up call, and we should really focus on stabilizing the situation in Lebanon, and relations between Lebanon and Israel, but not stop there," the secretary-general said.
He also urged a resolution of the conflict on Israel's border with the Gaza Strip and continued uncertainty over the status of the Golan Heights.
Annan also cautioned that the controversy over Iran's continued uranium enrichment, which many in the international community see as evidence of a nuclear weapons program, should be pursued cautiously.
"We cannot afford another crisis in this region," Annan said.
Annan also urged action on other global conflicts, including the continuing violence in the Darfur region of Sudan. He called the situation in Darfur, where the Security Council hopes to station a U.N. peacekeeping force "desperate."
"We are heading for a disaster, and I don't think we can allow that to happen," he said.
