கோபி அன்னானின் கடைசிப் பேச்சு

The Middle East is the key, says Annan in tearful goodbye
By Sam Knight and agencies

Peace in Iraq, Afghanistan and across the world will depend on the ability of the United Nations to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict in the Middle East, Kofi Annan said today at the opening of the General Assembly in New York.

Mr Annan, who is nearing the end of his second five-year term as the UN Secretary General, used his last address to the assembled heads of state to identify the ongoing dispute between Israel and the Palestinians as the world's key war zone.

"No other conflict carries such a powerful symbolic and emotional charge among people far removed from the battlefield," he said.

"As long as the Palestinians live under occupation, exposed to daily frustration and humiliation; and as long as Israelis are blown up in buses or in dance-halls: so long will passions everywhere be inflamed."

Mr Annan, 68, said that as long as the UN Security Council failed to end the 60-year dispute "so long will our best efforts to resolve other conflicts be resisted, including those in Iraq and Afghanistan, whose peoples need our help just as badly, are entitled to it".

Mr Annan singled out the Middle East as the heart of the world's security problems after a summer of violence, which saw the kidnapping of an Israeli soldier by Palestinian militants spark a regional war in which more than 1,000 Lebanese civilians were killed, 200 Palestinians lost their lives and nearly 150 Israeli people died in a stream of missile attacks.

His message came ahead of a meeting with the "Quartet" of America, Russia, the EU and the UN tonight to discuss the crisis.

Hopes were raised earlier today when the Israeli Foreign Minister, Tzipi Livni, met the Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, to discuss the possible resumption of peace talks after the formation of a Palestinian government of national unity.

An emotional Mr Annan raised the General Assembly to its feet at the end of his speech, in which he also called on the world to intervene in Darfur, the region of western Sudan afflicted by famine and genocide.

"Sadly, once again the biggest challenge comes from Africa - from Darfur, where the continued spectacle of men, women and children driven from their homes by murder, rape and the burning of their villages makes a mockery of our claim, as an international community, to shield from the worst abuses," he said.

Mr Annan is expected to use this week's three-day meeting of the General Assembly to heap pressure on the Sudanese President, Omar al-Beshir, to accept the deployment of up to 20,000 UN peacekeepers in Darfur, a mission vigorously opposed by the Sudanese Government, which is accused of complicity in the killing of up to 300,000 people.

The UN Security Council approved a peacekeeping mission in Darfur last month to take over from the poorly equipped and thinly spread African Union force that has attempted to police the region for the last three years. Sudan has said it will replace the AU soldiers with its own military forces.

Looking back on his ten years as Secretary General, Mr Annan said: "Together we have pushed some big rocks to the top of the mountain, even if others have slipped from our grasp and rolled back."

But he said remained filled with an "obstinate feeling for hope for our common future" after a recent visit to the Middle East.