UN chief Kofi Annan, on his first visit to the Middle East in four years, said he was encouraged by developments in the peace process after talks with Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas.
"The International Community is determined to work with both sides to press ahead with the peace process and the implementation of the roadmap," he told a news conference in the West Bank city of Ramallah.
"I think that the possible developments give us a chance to re-energise the process and work to ensure that the day a Palestinian state will be established living side by side with Israel will not be too long" in the future, he added.
Annan said he and Abbas discussed Israel's planned withdrawal from the Gaza Strip later this year and efforts to hand over security control to the Palestinian Authority in five West Bank towns.
He said the security transfer -- which had stalled last week -- "is going to take place fairly shortly".
Although he said there would be hurdles along the road, he
said he was "very encouraged" after his talks with the two leaders.
The UN Secretary General earlier laid a wreath at the tomb of late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat before going to meet Abbas.
Abbas was later Monday to head to talks in Riyadh with Saudi Arabia's King Fahd and Crown Prince Abdullah ahead of a conference with Palestinian factions in Cairo on Tuesday.
The Palestinian leader has said he expects militants to agree on a formal ceasefire at the talks, which were delayed after a Tel Aviv suicide bombing last month, jeopardising a truce declared at a Middle East summit in February.

Annan said Sunday he was encouraged by developments in the peace process as he held talks with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
"We've all been very encouraged by recent developments including the Sharm el-Sheikh agreement and we as a member of the quartet we look forward to working... in moving the process forward," Annan said.
He was referring to last month's landmark peace summit in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh that brought together Sharon and Abbas.
The so-called quartet of the European Union, Russia, the United Nations and the United States drafted the Middle East peace roadmap that sought to pave the way to the creation of an independent Palestinian state by 2005.