MONTEVIDEO -- The United Nations on Tuesday opened a meeting in Uruguay to address problems affecting the peace process between Palestine and Israel.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, in a message to the UN Latin American and Caribbean Meeting in Support of Israeli-Palestinian Peace, said "all expressions of violence must cease and its perpetrators must be taken to justice."

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The theme of the meeting was "The urgency of realizing a two-State solution."

Speaking at the opening session of the meeting, Abdou Salam Diallo, chairman of the UN Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, said any solution must be based on the recognition of two nations.

He urged the international community to recognize the State of Palestine so that Israel would have no alternative but to accept real negotiations.

Diallo welcomed recent recognition of Palestine as a sovereign state by a number of Latin American countries, which he said represents "a valuable contribution" toward achieving a two-state solution.

South America "does not have any commitment to either part in the conflict except for a solution that allows for democracy and peace in the Middle East," Uruguay's Foreign Minister Luis Almagro said.

In recent months, Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador, Peru, Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela all formally recognized Palestine as a sovereign nation.