UN Secretary General Kofi Annan on Tuesday urged Israel to lift restrictions on Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, who has been confined to the West Bank town of Ramallah for more than two months.
"The destruction of the Palestinian Authority's infrastructure will only increase the difficulty it has in meeting both its political and its security commitments," Annan said.
"Certainly, the virtual house arrest imposed on President Arafat should be lifted," he said in a speech to the United Nations Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People.
The committee, set up in 1975, comprises 25 countries, all of them developing nations. It meets irregularly and makes recommendations to the UN General Assembly, notably on the provision of aid to the Palestinian people.
Annan noted that more than 1,100 people had been killed and 20,000 injured -- the "overwhelming majority" of them Palestinians -- since the start in late September 2000 of the intifadah, the uprising against Israeli occupation.
"The deadly spiral of violence must stop; the parties should move away from confrontation and recriminations, and return to the negotiating table," Annan said.
The government of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has said it will not reopen talks with the Palestinian Authority (PA) until there have been seven days of complete calm in Israel and the occupied territories.
Sharon has accused Arafat of failing to stop the violence, in particular attacks by suicide bombers, and in early December ordered the Israeli army to blockade the PA headquarters in Ramallah.
Annan implicitly rejected Sharon's policy, saying preconditions could "all too easily be thwarted by extremists."
Experience had shown that "extremists can be isolated, and security improved, once there are renewed prospects for negotiations and the climate of mistrust, frustration and despair is eased."
(Xinhua News Agency February 13, 2002)
