UN necessitates peacekeeping force in ME conflict

By: Ahmad Hammadi

JERUSALEM: AS Palestinian President Yasser Arafat urged UN Secretary-General to urgently interfere in the Middle East developments in order to impede the escalation of violence, Kofi Annan has called for the dispatch of an international peacekeeping force to curtail the strengthening aggression in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

In an interview published Friday, Annan said that the US monitors’ intervention to shepherd through President Bush's “road map” for peace probably would not be enough to bring an immediate halt to the bloodshed.

Arafat had forwarded a written message to Annan in which he demanded that the Israeli army should stop combat operations on the territory of Palestine against innocent Palestinians.

“The monitoring mechanism that will be put in place next week is a beginning and it may be enough if the parties are able to break the cycle of violence,” Annan told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.

The UN chief said: “In the interim I would like to see an armed peacekeeping force act as a buffer between the Israelis and Palestinians.”

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