BICOM

United Nations’ (UN) Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is visiting Israel and the Palestinian areas of the West Bank in a public show of support for the resumption of peace talks this week.

Israeli and Palestinian Authority (PA) delegations met late Wednesday for the first substantive peace negotiations in three years. Ban commented on the talks following a meeting with Jordan’s Foreign Minister yesterday, calling on “patience” from both sides during the negotiations. According to Jordanian news agency Petra, Ban asked that they “do all that they can for the success of their negotiations and achieve the needed progress.”

Very few details regarding Wednesday’s peace talks were publicly released. However, during a joint press conference between PA President Mahmoud Abbas and Ban yesterday in Ramallah, Abbas said that all final status issues had been discussed by the Israeli and PA delegations on Wednesday including borders, Jerusalem, settlements, refugees, security and prisoners. Abbas added, “It’s premature to say whether we have or haven’t achieved something.”

Ban will today move on to Jerusalem, where he is scheduled to meet senior Israeli leaders including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Shimon Peres. Some reports suggest that he will also meet Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, who heads Israel’s delegation at the peace talks, Defence Minister Moshe Ya’alon, and leader of the opposition Shelly Yachimovich. Ban will also symbolically lay a wreath at the grave of former-Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, one of the architects of the Oslo Process during the 1990s, who was murdered at a peace rally in 1995.

Although the current peace talks are subject to a media blackout, in order to prevent leaks and media speculation which could hamper negotiations, the two sides are expected to meet again in the West Bank during the coming few days.