UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon addresses a joint press conference in the West Bank city of Ramallah March 20, 2010
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said on Saturday that proximity talks between Israel and Palestinians shouldn't be an alternative to direct negotiations.
The indirect negotiations, proposed by the United States, is a step for the final, direct negotiations, Ban said at a joint news conference with Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad in Ramallah.
He insisted that negotiations are the only way to resolve the decades-long conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, adding that the discussions should lead to establishing a Palestinian statehood on the lands Israel occupied in 1967, including East Jerusalem.
The negotiations deadlocked in December 2008 when Israel launched a military campaign in the Gaza Strip. The building of settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, the territories the Palestinians want for a future state, undermined efforts to revive the talks.
Last week, Israel approved the building of 1,600 new homes in the occupied East Jerusalem, hindering a fresh U.S. proposal to revive the peace talks between the two sides by holding proximity talks on the borders of the future state.
Ban said that the settlements violate international law, calling on Israel to respect UN resolutions on the Middle East.
Ban's second visit to the Palestinian territories comes a day after he joined a meeting of the Middle East Quartet on stalled peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians.
At the meeting in Moscow Friday, Ban urged Israel to freeze all settlement activities.
At arrival, Fayyad took Ban to a tour during which they looked from a high position at the concrete barrier Israel is building in the occupied territory to secure its settlements.
The UN chief said there that the Jewish settlements complicates the situation, urging Israel to take more steps to ease the life of Palestinians, especially in the blockaded Gaza Strip.
Fayyad also showed Ban maps for the route of the wall that would affect chances of having a viable Palestinian state alongside Israel.
Later Ban will go to Israel to talk to Israeli President Shimon Peres. He will also meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and some other senior Israeli officials to clarify the UN's stance for the Middle East peace.
In January 2009, just when Israel ended a three-week military operation in Gaza, Ban visited the coastal enclave and said he was "appalled" by the destruction following the offensive.
He is visiting Gaza again on Sunday, with thousands of houses still in ruins a year after the war as Israel keeps its blockade in place. Ban is not expected to talk with officials from Islamic Hamas movement which seized Gaza by force in June 2007.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon (L) and Palestinian Prime minister Salam Fayyad attend a joint press conference in the West Bank city of Ramallah on March 20, 2010.