UNITED NATIONS, Nov. 29 (Xinhuanet) -- The United Nations held a meeting on Tuesday at its headquarters in New York to mark the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinians, urging both Palestine and Israel to seize the current opportunity to realize peace in the Middle East.

    

UN holds meeting to observe Palestinian Solidarity Day.(Photo: Xinhua/AFP)

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan told delegations that, while a solution to the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict had proved elusive, with Palestinians yet to see the beginnings of their own State and Israelis yet to feel secure in theirs, the agreement two weeks ago on the Rafah crossing had created a new opportunity to cooperate and bring tangible benefits for ordinary people -- particularly among Palestinians.

    Addressing the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, Annan urged the Palestinian and Israeli leadership to work with each other and the Quartet to ensure the agreement was implemented in full and on time.

    He added that Israel's disengagement from the Gaza Strip and the Palestinians' success in ensuring calm during that period had raised hopes for a renewal of the political process.

    Unfortunately, the ensuing upsurge in violence had seriously undermined that fledgling coordination, bringing back feelings of frustration and disappointment, the Secretary-General said.

    If disengagement was to be a springboard to progress on broader issues, it was vital that the parties give new impetus to meeting their obligations under the Road Map, which they had accepted and which had been endorsed by the Security Council, he stressed.

    He pointed out that Palestinians needed to be assured that the future viability of a Palestinian State would not be eroded by settlement expansion and barrier construction, and Israelis neededto be assured that their security would not be compromised by failure to act decisively against terror.

    General Assembly President Jan Eliasson said the last 30-year period had been a troubling and difficult one for the region, and political progress had been slow or absent.

    He stressed that images and realities of violence and human suffering had dominated the Palestinian-Israeli relations, adding that lack of trust had permeated the relationship.

    Eliasson also noted that against that somber background, it was gratifying to note progress made this year, saying the Palestinian people had demonstrated their commitment to democracy during the presidential election in January and the international community had welcomed the Israeli withdrawal and dismantlement of settlements in the Gaza Strip and parts of the northern West Bank in late summer.

UN holds meeting to observe Palestinian Solidarity Day. (Photo: Xinhua/AFP)

    Welcoming the agreement on movement for the Rafah crossing, the Security Council President for December, Russian Ambassador Andrey Denisov called on the parties to take immediate action to implement them.

    The Security Council also fully supported the holding of free, fair and transparent Palestinian legislative elections next January, he declared, adding that members were also united in the view that the international community must take concrete steps to ensure that extremists did not undo the positive changes in the Palestinian-Israeli settlement.

    Delivering a message from Mahmoud Abbas, Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization and President of the Palestinian Authority, Riyad Mansour, Permanent Observer of Palestine, said that, despite the unilateral nature ofthe Gaza withdrawal and serious concern that it had been carried out in the framework of deepening colonization in the West Bank, the Palestinian Authority would strive to transform the withdrawal into an opportunity to return to the negotiating table.

    The opening of the Rafah crossing linked the Gaza Strip with the Arab world, and provided a step forward towards the realization of the independent, contiguous and viable Palestinian State, he said. Enditem