United Nations, DEC 21, SPA -- U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said Tuesday he regretted the fact that Israel and the Palestinians were unable to secure a lasting peace during his 10-year tenure, despite the fact that the world organization did as much as it could. I am rather sad that as I leave, we haven t made much progress, said Annan, who noted his work with the Middle East peacemaking Quartet. On other topics, Annan defended the United Nations, saying that its Secretariat is not the scandal-ridden organization that has been portrayed by Western media. The U.N. is the U.N. that coordinates the tsunami, the U.N. is the one that deals with the Kashmir earthquake, the U.N. that is fighting for human dignity and the rights of others, he said at his final news conference. The outgoing secretary-general rejected the notion that the failures of the United Nations were primarily his fault rather than a collective problem. We also need to ensure that we don t try to lay the blame on a single person for what is going on , he said. According to Annan, I have a regret that we were not able to resolve this as soon as possible, but there is a tendency in certain places to blame the secretary-general for everything for Rwanda, for Srerbrenica, for Darfur but why shouldn t we blame the secretary-general for Iraq, Lebanon, Afghanistan, the tsunami? --SPA www.spa.gov.sa/412847