UNITED NATIONS, October 16 (RIA Novosti) – UN Secretay General Ban Ki-moon has called for swift solutions to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as well as the Syrian crisis and urged the international community to step up efforts aimed at containing the Ebola virus epidemic.
"Spare no effort to rebuild Gaza – and spare no time to jump-start peace talks," Ban Ki-moon said Thursday, a day after he returned from his week-long trip to the Middle East.
"The Gaza situation is a symptom of a larger problem: the stalemate in the Middle East Peace Process. People are understandably disillusioned with a decades-long effort that has failed to deliver a final deal. I know that trust has been eroded and unilateral actions look tempting. But the two-state solution is the only way to end the senseless cycle of war," the UN Secretary General stressed.
Ban Ki-moon also expressed concern regarding the situation in Syria and called for steps aimed at protecting civilians in the county, which is fighting Islamic State (IS) militants.
According to Ban Ki-moon, the extremists "will continue to threaten Syria unless the deep political drivers of the conflict are resolved through a credible and comprehensive process".
"The Daesh [IS] phenomenon in Syria is a consequence, not the cause, of the conflict [in the country]," the Secretary General noted.
Turning from the terrorist threat to the threat of the Ebola virus, Ban Ki-moon said that the current Ebola epidemic in West Africa "is a huge and urgent global problem that demands a huge and urgent global response".
The Secretary General called on the international community to "turn pledges into action" in order to meet the target of reducing the rate of Ebola transmission by December 1.
