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| Sunday, 6 March 2005 |
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UN's Annan pays rare visit to Israel, Palestinians UNITED NATIONS, Saturday, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan plans this month to visit Israel and the Palestinian West Bank to discuss Middle East peace proposals and attend the opening of a new Holocaust museum, U.N. envoys said. The visit on March 15-16, the first by Annan in nearly four years, will include talks with President President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli officials. The trip was timed to the opening of the new Holocaust History Museum at Yad Vashem, the Israeli memorial for the 6 million Jews killed by the Nazis in World War Two. Annan has been active in pushing a road map for Middle East peace drafted by the quartet of advisers - the United States, Russia, the European Union and the United States. Late on Friday, the secretary-general and his wife Nane came to a farewell party for Nasser al-Kidwa, the U.N. Palestinian envoy for decades who is now foreign minister in the new Abbas government. Several hundred diplomats stood in line for about an hour to greet al-Kidwa, his French wife Christine and Somaia Barghouti, his deputy at the United Nations. Among the invited guests were Israel's U.N. Ambassador Daniel Gillerman, unusual at a Palestinian gathering and to many a hopeful sign for the peace process. Before the reception Al-Kidwa told reporters the Palestinian Authority had taken measures towards instituting the road map, which spells out steps towards a Palestinian state. "We are confident that we are doing the right things that should reflect on the overall situation," said al-Kidwa, a dentist by training and a nephew of the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. "Both sides have to see that the peace is coming and take appropriate steps." he said. |
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