UNITED NATIONS, Dec. 12 (UPI) -- U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, in has last report to the Security Council before retiring at the end of the year, made an impassioned plea for Arab-Israeli peace, saying it was not just another regional conflict the world body faced.
He was not optimistic about the situation on the ground, as they like to say at U.N. World Headquarters in New York, but said he was optimistic diplomats could overcome difficulties and find a solution.
"No other conflict carries such a powerful symbolic and emotional charge even for people far away," he said. Yet, while there have been important achievements reached in the search for Middle East peace, "a final settlement has defied the efforts of several generations of world leaders. I, too, will leave office without an end to the prolonged agony."
The region was in "profound crisis," and the situation is now more complex, more fragile and more dangerous than it has been for a very long time with mistrust between Israelis and Palestinians reaching "new heights."
"Tensions in the region are near the breaking point," Annan said. "Extremism and populism are leaving less political space for moderates, including those states that have reached peace agreements with Israel" and warned, "The opportunity for negotiating a two-state solution will last for only so long."
Annan asked for changes in mindset by both Israelis and Palestinians and more effort by the diplomatic Quartet of the European Union, Russia, United Nations and United States. The four nations are seeking a two-state solution, known as the road map, for Israel and Palestine to live side-by-side in peace.
He said Israel needs to reach a negotiated end to its occupation based on the principle of land for peace, while Palestinians and their supporters will never be truly effective if they focus solely on Israel's transgressions, without conceding any justice or legitimacy to Israel's own concerns.
"The parties themselves, at various times and through various diplomatic channels, have come close to bridging almost all of the gaps between them. There is every reason for the parties to try again, with principled, concerted help from the international community. We need a new and urgent push for peace," he said.
"I believe that the fundamental aspirations of both peoples can be reconciled. I believe in the right of Israel to exist, and to exist in full and permanent security -- free from terrorism, free from attack, free even from the threat of attack," the secretary-general said.
"I believe in the right of the Palestinians to exercise their self-determination. They have been miserably abused and exploited ... They deserve to see fulfilled their simple ambition to live in freedom and dignity," he added.
Annan said the road map should still be the "reference point" around which any effort to re-energize a political effort should be concentrated, but said the Quartet, which sponsored the plan, should also be "open to new ideas and initiatives."
"The Quartet needs to do more to restore faith not only in its own seriousness and effectiveness, but also in the road map's practicability and to create the conditions for resuming a viable peace process," he said.
"It needs to find a way to institutionalize its consultations with the relevant regional partners. It needs to engage the parties directly in its deliberations. The time has come for the Quartet to be clearer at the outset on the parameters of an end-game deal."
The secretary-general said the world community must develop a "new understanding" of the uncertainty engulfing the Middle East. He added that although its various crises and conflicts -- which also involve Lebanon, Syria, Iran, and Iraq -- have become "ever more intertwined," the parties themselves bear the main responsibility.
"Each of these conflicts has its own dynamics and causes," Annan said. "Each will require its own specific solution, and its own process to produce a solution that will endure. And in each case, it is the parties involved who bear the primary responsibility for peace. No one can make peace for them."
Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian observer, said while the elements of peace in the Middle East are clear, the main problem remains a lack of political will in the international community and a lack of serious and tangible measures and practical mechanisms, essential for effective implementation of Security Council resolutions and regional group initiatives.
He called it paralysis in the peace process.
Ambassador Daniel Cameron of Israel said, "The Israeli-Palestinian conflict was erroneously identified by some as the source of all instability in the region," he said, quickly adding it "is in actuality the consequence -- not the cause -- of extremism, radicalism, of incitement and intolerance, of hate and terrorism, all poisoning our region."
The problem was the region and the world are "challenged by warring ideologies," Cameron said. "It is no surprise then that the road to peace runs directly through the battlefield of the moderates and extremists."
