Secretary-General calls for a durable ceasefire between Hamas and Israel – SG press conference (excerpts)

PRESS CONFERENCE BY SECRETARY-GENERAL BAN KI-MOON AT UNITED NATIONS HEADQUARTERS

Following is a transcript of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s press conference, held in New York today:

Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is a great pleasure to see you on the eve of the General Debate and I thank you for your time.

I am pleased to brief you as we open a new session of the General Assembly this afternoon.

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Questions and Answers

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Question:  Thank you.  Secretary-General, on Gaza, it's been three weeks since the ceasefire has been signed.  Do you believe now that a Security Council resolution is necessary and do you envision the possibility of any sort of UN protection force for Gaza?

Secretary-General:  I understand that the Security Council is very actively concerting among the Member States to have a resolution adopted.  I know that this is going on smoothly with all this ceasefire agreed.  But, we should also understand that this ceasefire is not perfect and not a sustainable one.  It's fragile still.  Therefore, it would be important that international community, particularly led by the Security Council, to urge the parties to make this ceasefire a more sustainable and more durable one so that we can talk about… you know, so that it can be led into a Middle East peace process.  At the same time there is a very serious and urgent issue of reconstruction of Gaza, which has been devastated during a 50-day-long war.  Therefore, I'm in close consultation with the Security Council members, particularly the Presidency of the Security Council, on the issue of this Council's resolution.  Yesterday, I was briefed by Robert Serry and I understand that he had also briefed the Security Council on the need and importance of the Security Council taking action on this.  And I'm in always very close consultation with the leaders in the region.

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