Negotiations on Palestinian-Israeli conflict settlement in deadlock - UN assistant secretary-general
BAKU. July 20 (Interfax) - The settlement of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict based on the two-state solution principle is the only acceptable option for restoring Palestinians' rights, UN Assistant Secretary-General for Political Affairs Miroslav Jenca said.
The current deadlock in the negotiating process and the expansion of Israel's settlement activity in the Palestinian territories has been making the abyss between the parties even broader, Jenca said at an international conference in Baku on Thursday.
The UN will continue to make efforts to settle the conflict, and only joint efforts can help make a step ahead toward resolving the issue, he said.
Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry Ambassador-at-Large Sahin Abdullayev said Azerbaijan would continue to support the United Nations' and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation's efforts to settle the dispute between Palestine and Israel. "The international community should focus on the issue of East Jerusalem so as to restore peace in the Middle East and restore Jerusalem as the capital of Palestine within the 1967 borders," Abdullayev said.
He also called for settling the issue of the mosque of Haram esh-Sharif (Temple Mount).
