larsen

Saying he is "deeply disturbed" by recent Israeli military attacks which have left at least a dozen Palestinian civilians dead, the senior United Nations Middle East envoy today called for action to protect innocents on both sides of the conflict.

With broad agreement on the steps needed to reach a comprehensive settlement in the Middle East, the international community must now help the Israelis and Palestinians move the peace process back on track and towards completion, the United Nations top envoy to the region said at a UN media seminar in Copenhagen, which concluded today.

The question of reform was high on the agenda during the London meeting of the representatives of the United Nations, European Union, Russian Federation and the United States - the so-called diplomatic "Quartet" on the Middle East, a UN spokesperson said today in New York.

Appalled by the latest suicide bombing against Israeli citizens, a top United Nations envoy for the Middle East today said "such attacks cannot be endured, and must stop."

Delivering a lecture in the Norwegian capital, where an effort to bring peace to the Middle East began a decade ago, a top United Nations envoy said today that even though the “Oslo process” was at a standstill, its basic principles remained valid while an international consensus was building around new precepts and mechanisms that could lead to a sustainable accord between the two parties to the crisis.

The United Nations Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, has expressed concern over the recent public criticism of his Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, Terje Roed-Larsen, by representatives of the Government of Israel.

The United Nations top envoy to the Middle East today met with Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat and was slated to meet later with senior officials from the Israeli Government, as well as representatives of countries helping to promote the peace process in the region, a UN spokesperson in New York said Tuesday.

The top United Nations envoy in the Middle East today met with the commanders of the three UN peacekeeping missions in the region to discuss the current, “bleak” situation, according to a UN spokesperson in New York.

In Jerusalem today, representatives of the 'quartet' - the United Nations, the United States, the Russian Federation and the European Union - held talks on security issues in advance of tomorrow's arrival of the US envoy to the region, according to a senior UN official.