Recent Middle East violence goes against diplomatic initiatives, Annan tells Council

The recent upsurge of violence in the Middle East marked a regression from the diplomatic initiative put forward last week by the Quartet – the United Nations, European Union, Russian Federation and the United States, Secretary-General Kofi Annan told the Security Council today.

“Far from seeing the first steps towards implementing the Quartet’s vision, the events of the past few days represent a tragic step in the opposite direction,” Mr. Annan told an open meeting of the Council convened to discuss the situation in the Middle East. He noted that the last week has seen a recurrence of the cycle of violence and retaliation in the occupied Palestinian territories after a period of “relative calm” in Israel.

Mr. Annan said terror attacks “strike directly at the very hope [of a final settlement] which – as the Quartet agreed – is an essential driver of the political process,” and urged all Palestinians to renounce “this wicked instrument of terror.”

At the same time, recalling that the Quartet had called on the Palestinian Authority to reform security services and combat terrorism, the Secretary-General questioned how this would be possible “if what is left of the civil and security infrastructure of the Palestinian Authority – already gravely weakened – is now in the process of being destroyed?” He added that such destruction would surely “only set back even further the prospects for implementing necessary reforms and ensuring real improvements in the Authority’s security performance.”

Similarly, the continuing destruction of local capacity to provide basic services would undermine efforts to meet humanitarian needs, he noted. “Further misery is hardly a basis for progress, whether political, security or economic.”

The Quartet and Arab partners were working to help the Palestinian Authority to implement reforms, “but we can succeed only if the Government of Israel actively supports the process, rather than hindering it,” he said, cautioning that “grinding down” the Authority’s Headquarters was likely to cause greater political instability in the West Bank and Gaza.

The Secretary-General appealed to Israel to take greater care to protect Palestinian civilians and to refrain from violations of international humanitarian law. “Israel needs to understand that there will be no lasting security without a political settlement – and therefore, even while defending itself against terrorist attacks, Israel should cooperate actively with the Quartet's efforts to reach such a settlement within the next three years,” he said. “The Palestinians, on their side, need to understand that there will be no settlement without lasting security for Israel.”

“In the end there will have to be a political settlement, negotiated between the two peoples on an equal basis; a settlement in which – as this Council has said – two States, Israel and Palestine, live side by side within secure and recognized borders,” Mr. Annan said.