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| UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon (L) and Palestinian Prime minister Salam Fayyad review honor guards in the West Bank city of Ramallah on March 20, 2010.(Xinhua/Fadi Arouri) |
RAMALLAH, March 20 (Xinhua) -- UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon arrived in the West Bank city of Ramallah on Saturday in a bid to push for indirect talks that would eventually lead to direct negotiations between Israel and Palestinians.
Upon arrival, Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad took Ban to a tour during which they had a look from a high position of the concrete barrier Israel is building in the occupied territory to secure its settlements.
Ban said the Jewish settlements made the situation difficult, calling on Israel to take more steps to ease the life of Palestinians, especially in the blockaded Gaza Strip.
Fayyad showed Ban some maps for the route of the wall that would affect chances of having a viable Palestinian state alongside Israel.
Ban and Fayyad are scheduled to hold more talks at the Palestinian prime minister's office. Later, Ban will go to Israel to talk to Israeli President Shimon Peres. He will also meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and some other senior Israeli officials to clarify the UN's stance for the Middle East peace.
On Sunday, Ban will visit the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip and hold a press conference in front of Khan Younis Housing Project, which is under the auspices of the UN.
The UN chief's second visit to the Palestinian territories comes a day after he joined a Middle East Quartet meeting which brought together U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton and Quartet representative Tony Blair.
At the meeting in Moscow, Ban urged Israel to freeze all settlement activities. "The Quartet urges the government of Israel to freeze all settlement activity" in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, Ban said.
The Quartet peacemakers, comprising the United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations, met to assess the stalled peace process between Israel and the Palestinian National Authority (PNA).
A statement by the Quartet gave Israel and the PNA 24 months to start negotiations on the final status issues that would enable the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel.
Last week, Israel approved the building of 1,600 new homes in the occupied East Jerusalem which the Palestinians want as a future capital, hindering a fresh U.S. proposal to revive the peace talks between the two sides.
In January 2009, just when Israel ended a three-week military operation in Gaza, Ban visited the coastal enclave and said he was "appalled" by the destruction following the offensive.
Ban's second Gaza tour on Sunday would see thousands of houses remaining in ruins as Israel kept its blockade in place.
Ban is not planned to see officials from the Islamic Hamas movement which has been ruling Gaza since seizing the coastal enclave by force in June 2007.
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| UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon (L) and Palestinian Prime minister Salam Fayyad attend a joint press conference in the West Bank city of Ramallah on March 20, 2010.(Xinhua/Fadi Arouri) |
