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UN chief to attend Paris conference on Middle East

Xinhua, June 3, 2016 Adjust font size:

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will leave New York later Thursday to attend the Paris conference on the Middle East scheduled for Friday, a UN spokesman said here.

As the UN special coordinator for the Middle East peace process, Nickolay Mladenov, informed the UN Security Council last week, participants at the conference intend to reaffirm their commitment to a negotiated two-state solution and to discuss how they can support both parties constructively in achieving this goal.

The secretary-general expects to have bilateral meetings with some of the key participants at the conference, Stephane Dujarric said, adding that he will be back in New York later Friday.

In his May 25 briefing to the 15-nation UN body, Mladenov said that Ban will be in Paris to reaffirm their commitment to a negotiated two-state solution and to discuss how they can constructively support both parties in achieving this goal.

The two-state solution, widely backed by the international community, means a secure Israel to live in peace with an independent State of Palestine.

"The will to advance towards peace clearly exists," Mladenov said in his briefing. "What remains glaringly absent is the political will and bold leadership to make genuine progress a reality."

"We need collectively to ask ourselves whether those Israelis and Palestinians who today support a return to negotiations will continue to do so next year, or two years from now, if the prospects for peace remain out of reach," the UN special coordinator said, citing a recent study conducted by Tel Aviv University.

The study showed that close to 60 percent of the Jewish population and more than 70 percent of Palestinians remain in favour of conducting peace negotiations.

"Prolonging the current impasse will sap any remaining optimism for finding a solution to the nearly 50-year occupation," he said.

The UN envoy underscored that over the past decades, a broad consensus has been built around the understanding that the Palestinian-Israeli conflict can only be resolved through negotiations and on the basis of a two-state solution. Enditem