Mr. President,

The new round of violent conflict between Israel and Palestine, breaking out at the end of September last year, has been lasting more than one year. It has caused enormous innocent civilian casualties as well as huge losses of properties and pulled the Middle East peace process into a serious setback. We would like to express our deep grief over those innocent civilians killed and our condolences to the bereaved families. At the same time, we condemn all violent attacks against civilians. We also condemn Israel's excessive use of force against Palestinian civilians, its military invasion of territories under the control of the Palestinian and its military attacks targeting the Palestinian leaders.

The recent continuous escalation of violence between Israel and Palestine, which has made the situation on the ground even more tense and volatile, has attracted wide attention from the international community. Facing with this severe situation in the Middle East, the Security Council, which shoulders a primary responsibility for maintaining international peace and security, should take real action to fulfill its responsibility. We have all along maintained that the Security Council should take resolute action to bring the violence to an end and prevent the situation from worsening, including deploying international observor forces or establishing a monitoring mechanism in the region. We have made unremitting efforts to this end, together with other members of the Security Council. Regrettably, however, the draft resolution on this issue has been vetoed once again at the Security Council, which, we believe, is of no help to holding back and de-escalating the Israel- Palestine conflict.

At the core of the Middle East issue lies the question of Palestine. The key to the resolution of this question and the realization of lasting peace in the Middle East is the restoration of the legitimate national rights of the Palestinians, including their right to independent statehood, on the basis of relevant Security Council resolutions and the principle of land for peace. It has been demonstrated over and over in the Middle East's past and present that violence and military retaliation can only serve to deepen mutual hatred. The "violence for violence" approach will only give rise to more and bloodier violences, bringing greater losses of lives and properties to civilians on both sides. Dialogue and negotiation, therefore, are the only right track that leads to peace. We would like to urge the two sides to keep calm in addressing the current serious situation and stop retaliations, so as to avoid a vicious cycle of escalation of violence. We hope they can take concrete steps to faithfully implement existing agreements and understandings and resume peace talks at an early date, so as to find a solution to their conflict through negotiation. We welcome the efforts of mediation by all parties concerned of the international community to ease the Middle East situation. We wish these efforts could bring us near to the early restoration of the legitimate national rights of the Palestinian people as well as a just and comprehensive solution to the question of Palestine, on the basis of relevant Security Council Resolutions and the principle of land for peace.

President Arafat enjoys high prestige among the Palestinian people and he is also an important figure in many aspects of the international community. For many years, he has made significant contributions to working towards the restoration of the legitimate national rights of the Palestinian people and pushing forward the Middle East peace process. The Palestinian National Authority under his leadership is an indispensable party to the realization of peace in the Middle East, whose important role and status in the peace process must be maintained. Under the current extremely difficult circumstances, the Palestinian side has taken effective action to curb activities by extremists, which has demonstrated its sincerity in sticking to the road of peace. China supports President Arafat and the Palestinian National Authority under his leadership in their continued efforts to solve the question of Palestine through peace talks.

Thank you, Mr. President.