Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo on Monday appealed to the warring parties in the Middle East region to cease violence and embrace peace and dialogue.
"I would like to make a strong appeal to the Israeli and Palestinian authorities to please stop violence and return to dialogue," Obasanjo told dozens of mayors from across the world who gathered in Abuja for their 16th annual conference.
Obasanjo expressed his worry that all the "considerable progress made towards peace" in the region "would be jeopardized if the remaining grounds are not covered."
"It would be an exemplary mark of statesmanship on the part of the leaders on both sides if they could reconcile their differences for the sake of badly needed peace in this region which happens to be the spiritual focus for the world's three leading religions," he said.
The spiraling violence in the Middle East has claimed more than 100 lives, all but seven of them Arabs, and injured more than 3,000, prompting an emergency peace summit now under way in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt – ABUJA (AFP)
© 2000 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
