The UN Meeting for Asia-Pacific region on the Question of Palestine has sent three positive calls for "peace", "dialogue", and "support" to the international community, said an official with the Chinese Foreign Ministry in Beijing Wednesday.  

Zhang Jun, deputy director-general of the Department of International Organizations and Conferences of the Chinese Foreign Ministry, said at the closing session of the meeting that longstanding peace and stability in the Middle East was the urgent call from the international community.

Zhang said peace in the Middle East was unattainable through military means or violence, and was only possible through dialogue and negotiations.

That the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in the past 50-plus years had generated deep hatred and little mutual trust, and the Palestinian issue could not be resolved without the support of the international community, Zhang noted.

Delegates from many countries and organizations reached consensus on the situation in the occupied Palestinian Territory, stronger international support for a peaceful settlement, and support in Asia for the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people.

All participants expressed their profound concern for the deteriorating situation in the region and the untold suffering of the Palestinian people, underlining that the Road Map was a leading mechanism to promote the peaceful settlement of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

The delegates very much valued the Geneva Initiative offered by groups from both sides, and welcomed the UN Security Council's unanimous endorsement of the Road Map in Resolution 1515.

They called on concerned parties to cooperate with the four initiators of the Road Map -- the United States, Russia, the United Nations and the European Union -- and to carry out their Road Map obligations to achieve peaceful and secure co-existence.

They hoped that the United Nations would continue to maintain responsibility for the Palestine issue until a satisfactory settlement was reached on the basis of the related UN resolutions and the international law.

China, as a permanent member of the UN Security Council, had played a positive and constructive role in seeking a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in the Middle East, according to the delegates.

The meeting, which opened here Wednesday, was co-sponsored by the United Nations and the Chinese government under the theme of "Arousing International Support for a Peaceful Solution of the Question of Palestine".

The meeting participants are expected to attend the Public Forum in Support of Middle East Peace, which is scheduled to open here Thursday at the joint sponsorship of the United Nations and prestigious Peking University.

(Xinhua News Agency December 18, 2003)