RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) – UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called on Israel and the Palestinians yesterday to restart negotiations as world powers stepped up diplomatic efforts to push the peace process forward.
Ban also called on the Jewish state to stop settlement building in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, and said the holy city should be the capital for both Israel and a future Palestinian state.
“We have to get negotiations under way,” Ban said after meeting Western-backed Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad in the West Bank city of Ramallah. “We can and must find a way for Jerusalem to emerge from negotiations as the capital of two states with arrangements for holy sites acceptable to all.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared a limited, 10-month freeze on settlement building in the West Bank in November. But the moratorium did not include territory it captured in a 1967 war and annexed to Jerusalem.
The Jewish state sees all of Jerusalem as its capital, a claim that has not won international recognition.
The United Nations, along with the United States, Russia and the European Union, make up a quartet of Middle East mediators.
