Ban Ki-moon shakes hands withNetanyahu while attending a joint press conference in Jerusalem today.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged today Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to offer Palestinians goodwill gestures to keep peace talks alive.
Netanyahu gave no sign at a news conference with Ban that he would heed the appeal, which included a repeated call to refrain from «further settlement» in the occupied West Bank.
The two men met a day after Netanyahu won a renewed mandate to lead the right-wing Likud, taking some 75 percent of the vote to defeat an ultranationalist challenger in a party ballot.
«This is the moment to display further leadership to ensure that negotiations continue, as you were re-elected leader of the Likud party and you are going to continue another term,» Ban told Netanyahu at a news conference.
He said he discussed with Netanyahu «meaningful ways» to sustain talks with the Palestinians, who blamed Israel on Monday for the failure of exploratory sessions in Jordan aimed at resuming direct negotiations that stalled in 2010 over settlement building.
«I also strongly urged the government of Israel to act in a constructive spirit and offer goodwill gestures which will create a positive dynamic,» said Ban, who will meet Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas later in the day.
Aside from a settlement moratorium, Ban did not specify publicly any other steps he would like to see Israel take. The European Union has also sought confidence-building measures, including freeing some Palestinian prisoners and expanding areas of Palestinian control in the West Bank.
Abbas, as a condition for negotiations, has demanded that Israel agree to the establishment of a Palestinian state on all lands occupied in the 1967 Middle East war.
Netanyahu has called those boundaries indefensible and has balked at the Palestinians’ demands to freeze settlement. Under US pressure, he imposed a 10-month limited moratorium on housing starts in settlements, a measure that expired in 2010.
Five sessions of exploratory talks ended in Jordan on Jan. 25 and Palestinian officials said Abbas planned to consult an Arab League follow-up committee next week on what to do next.
Ban said he still hoped that Israel would present «its own concrete proposals on territory and security» as called for by an international Quartet of mediators – the United States, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations.
Netanyahu on Sunday accused the Palestinians of refusing to discuss «Israel’s security needs» at the Amman talks and described peace prospects as poor.
buenosairesherald.com