West Bank accord furthers peace process: fourth major pact signed.

• Position: Middle East

Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali on 28 September welcomed another important step in the Middle East peace process - the interim agreement between the Government of Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) on Palestinian self-rule in the West Bank.

It is the third historic instrument concluded between Israel and the PLO since the signing in September 1993 of the 17-article Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-Government Arrangements for the Gaza Strip and the West Bank town of Jericho.

The new accord - which consists of 31 articles followed by 6 annexes - was signed on 28 September by Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat in Washington D.C., at a White House ceremony presided over by United States President William J. Clinton.

It provides for, among other things, the redeployment of Israeli troops, release of Palestinian prisoners and the hand-over of civil authority in the West Bank to an elected Palestinian Council, as well as for cooperation in economic and environmental fields.

Mr. Boutros-Ghali said he hoped the pact would "encourage progress in the Israeli-Syrian and Israeli-Lebanese tracks" of the Middle East peace process, leading to a comprehensive, just and lasting settlement based on Security Council resolutions 242 (1967) and 338 (1973).

In reasserting the firm commitment of the UN in support of the peace process, the Secretary-General also stated that the programmes and agencies of the UN system would continue to provide "all possible expertise and assistance in the field of economic and social development".

The Declaration of Principles was signed by Prime Minister Rabin and PLO Chairman Arafat on 13 September 1993, also at the White House. The two parties agreed that it was "time to put an end to decades of confrontation and conflict, recognize their mutual legitimate and political rights, and strive to live in peaceful coexistence and mutual dignity and security and achieve a just, lasting and comprehensive peace settlement and historic reconciliation through the agreed political process".

That historic pact had paved the way for a number of important accords in the Middle East peace process, including: the 4 May 1994 Cairo Agreement between Israel and the PLO on Palestinian self-rule in Gaza and Jericho; the 26 July 1994 Washington Declaration, which ended the state of belligerency between Israel and Jordan, and the ensuing 26 October 1994 Peace Treaty between the two...