UN officials meet with Israeli, Palestinian leaders on Middle East peace

Secretary-General Kofi Annan and his top envoy for the Middle East peace process have met with senior Israeli and Palestinian officials in New York and Gaza in an effort to get both sides to stem the violence in the region and return to the negotiating table, a United Nations spokesman said today in New York.

In Gaza, the UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East, Terje Roed-Larsen, along with senior officials from the United States, Russia and the European Union, met Monday morning with Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat.

According to UN spokesman Fred Eckhard, a statement issued after the meeting said that the officials had urged Arafat to make a vigorous effort to combat terrorism and to enforce the Palestinian Authority's ceasefire orders.

"They added that such steps should be matched by the Israelis in full compliance with existing agreements, including the immediate withdrawal of Israeli forces and security personnel from 'Area A' zones that are under full Palestinian control," Mr. Eckhard told a press briefing at UN Headquarters.

On Sunday, the Secretary-General met in New York with Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres to review the "grave" situation in the Middle East, the spokesman said.

"The Foreign Minister explained the demands that Israel was making of the Palestinian Authority," he noted, while Mr. Annan emphasized "the need to find a way to return to the negotiating table, on the basis of the Mitchell report, and to break out of the current deadlock."

Mr. Peres also raised the concerns of the families of three Israeli soldiers kidnapped in Lebanon last year, the spokesman added, and the Secretary-General promised to look into the outstanding issues sympathetically.