Un Chief Urges Efforts For Direct Israel-Palestine Talks

The UN Secretary-General said Wednesday that he welcomes any Security Council action to advance the Israeli-Palestinian peace process but it would be up to the two parties to resolve the pending issues.



"Following this year's hostilities in Gaza, the leaders of Israel and Palestine have a responsibility to step back from the brink, ease the current tensions and salvage a two-state solution that is looking ever more remote," Ban Ki-moon told UN reporters in his traditional year-end address.



When asked about two planned Security Council proposals that seeks to bring an end to the Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands, he said it was more important for both sides to sit at the negotiation table to address the conflict.



An Arab-backed Security Council draft resolution that sets a November 2016 deadline for Israel to withdraw from territories it has occupied since 1967 is expected to be presented to the council in the coming days.



An alternative French proposal calling for a resumption of peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians within two years is also being discussed.



"I have been urging, and I'm urging again, that [Israel and Palestine] should discuss this matter so they can realize a two-state solution, two-state vision where Israeli and Palestinian people can live side by side in peace and security," Ban said, referring to the UN-proposed solution that calls for two states for two peoples with an independent state of Palestine alongside the state of Israel.



The roots of the Israel-Palestine conflict date to 1917, when the British government, in the now-famous "Balfour Declaration," called for "the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people."



Israel occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank during the 1967 Middle East War. It later annexed the holy city in 1980, claiming it as the capital of the self-proclaimed Jewish state – a move never recognized by the international community.



Palestinians want a state of their own in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, with East Jerusalem, currently occupied by Israel, as its capital.



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