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CNN Live Event/Special

Kofi Annan Speaks at Arab Summit in Beirut, Lebanon

Aired March 27, 2002 - 05:50   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: And you're looking at a live picture from Beirut from the Arab summit there, where a number of Arab leaders are attending that summit to talk about a Saudi peace plan for Israel and the Palestinians. This is Kofi Annan, the U.N. Secretary General speaking. Let's listen to him.

KOFI ANNAN, U.N. SECRETARY GENERAL: ... and the present reality of conflict. There is a solution to the paradox. The leaders on both sides, specifically Prime Minister Sharon and Chairman Arafat, must reaffirm the strategic choice for peace based on a just, (UNINTELLIGIBLE) and comprehensive settlement. It is their role and their duty to lead their peoples back from the brink. History and their peoples will remember them kindly if they rise to the challenge. History and their peoples will judge them harshly if they do not.

We all yearn to see a new era of peace and security for all. This yearning is reflected in the Security Council resolution 1397 passed earlier this month which affirms (UNINTELLIGIBLE) of a Middle East (UNINTELLIGIBLE) region, where two states, Israel and Palestine, live side by side within secure and recognized borders. Building on the bedrock of the earlier resolutions, 242 and 338, the Security Council has thus established the firm (UNINTELLIGIBLE) for a just and viable solution to the problem of Palestine.

We are no less united in our grave concern for the regional dimension of this conflict and in calling for a comprehensive peace between Israel and all its neighbors, including Syria and Lebanon. The world as a whole yearns with your peoples and the people of Israel for an end to the bloodshed and suffering. The people of the Arab world are not alone in believing that the Palestinians have a right to their own state and peace and security. That the long occupation must end. That there must be an immediate improvement in the unbearable living conditions of the Palestinians, and that Israel must abandon such indefensible methods as targeted assassinations and the use of heavy weaponry in densely populated areas.

COSTELLO: And you are listening to Kofi Annan, the U.N. Secretary General, talking at the Arab summit in Beirut, Lebanon. And just to recap what he said just a little bit, he said the Israelis and the Palestinians must reaffirm strategic plans for peace, and it is their duty to lead the people back from the brink of war. We'll get more from the Arab summit a little later on in our program.

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