The international community is preparing to step up diplomatic efforts to promote Middle East peace, with the creation of a Palestinian state existing peacefully alongside Israel as a key element, the UN political chief said Monday. In a briefing to the UN Security Council, Undersecretary-General for Political Affairs B. Lynn Pascoe said the Quartet of key international players trying to promote Mideast peace efforts – the UN, the US, the European Union and Russia – met last Friday in the West Bank city of Ramallah “to discuss plans to advance the peace process.” The Quartet remains “firmly committed to the goal of a two state solution ... and agreed to hold regular meetings in the region” to promote peace efforts, he said. His comments came as a contentious UN conference on human rights opened on a jarring note in Geneva, with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad charging in a speech that the United States and Europe had helped establish Israel after World War II at the expense of Palestinians and “under the pretext of Jewish suffering.” That prompted a walkout by some 40 diplomats from Britain and France and other European Union countries. Diplomats at the United Nations sought on Tuesday to advance an anti-racism declaration and brush off comments from Iran's president that prompted a rare conference walk-out. But the Middle East continued to loom over the meeting on Tuesday. Israel's previous government, led by Prime Minster Ehud Olmert, was committed to the goal of Israelis and Palestinians living side by side in peaceful independent states – as called for in several UN Security Council resolutions. But newly installed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has expressed misgivings about an independent Palestinian state and has so far refused to accept the principle of a two-state solution. US President Barack Obama's Mideast envoy, George Mitchell, met Netanyahu last week on a tour of the region, and the Israeli prime minister will visit Washington in May following the completion of an internal review of national security priorities, Pascoe said. Jordan's King Abdullah II will be the first Arab leader to visit the White House to discuss the peace process when he holds talks with Obama on Tuesday, and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is expected in Washington shortly afterward, he said. Russia, which holds the Security Council presidency in May, has proposed a ministerial meeting on the Middle East and is consulting with members “as we speak,” US deputy ambassador Alejandro Wolff said after Pascoe's briefing. The date under discussion for a possible foreign ministers meeting is May 11,
