UNITED NATIONS — A possible resumption of Israeli-Arab negotiations rose to the top of the agenda at the U.N. General Assembly this week, disappointing diplomats who expected issues like Darfur and the Iranian nuclear program to dominate the annual meeting.

“Like no other conflict, the Arab-Israeli conflict carries a powerful symbolic and emotional charge for people throughout the world,” Secretary-General Annan told the U.N. Security Council yesterday.

The council failed even to release a statement on the issue, however, and movement elsewhere also seemed stalled.

The vice prime minister of Israel, Shimon Peres, said a meeting between Prime Minister Olmert and the Palestinian Arab leader, Mahmoud Abbas, is contingent on the release of a kidnapped Israeli soldier, Corporal Gilad Shalit, and an end to the Kassam rocket attacks from Gaza, which have increased in recent days.

His statement came after Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said the two leaders are expected to meet. Secretary of State Rice, meanwhile, told reporters that she is planning to visit the region “soon,” but added, “I don’t have a date for you.” Instead, she counted among the signs of “movement” the planned meeting between Messrs. Olmert and Abbas.

During an Arab League summit in Cairo in July, Arab leaders declared the plan known as the road map “dead” and called for it to be replaced with a new Security Council initiative. Yesterday, however, Arab diplomats could not unite behind even a short statement to cap the council’s session.

And although some diplomats toned down the rhetoric of their council speeches, anti-Israeli and anti-Jewish sentiments were common.

After the pro-Syrian Lebanese president, Emile Lahoud, accused Israel at the General Assembly yesterday of holding the people of Lebanon “hostage,” an Israeli woman, Karnit Goldwasser, walked up to him, introduced herself, and asked for his help in freeing her husband, Ehud, a soldier whose July 12 kidnapping, along with that of Eldad Regev, ignited this summer’s war between Israel and Hezbollah. Ms. Goldwasser repeated her plea several times, but Mr. Lahoud turned his back on her and left with his entourage.

“His reaction said it all,” Ms. Goldwasser told Israel Radio. “He simply was unable to face up to the situation. He ran away, with all of them following him.”

After his meeting with Mr. Peres yesterday, Mr. Abbas said a new unity Palestinian Authority government would respect every agreement it has signed with Israel, chief among them the 1993 Oslo Accords.

Mr. Abbas’s efforts to form a national unity government with Hamas has yet to materialize, however, and his would-be partner, Prime Minister Ismail Haniyah of Hamas, has said he will not recognize those signed agreements.

Meanwhile, President al-Bashir of Sudan told reporters earlier this week that the world only cares about the situation in his country because of “Jewish and Zionist organizations.”

Beyond a call by Mr. Annan’s envoy to Sudan, Jan Pronk, for all sides in Darfur to lay down their weapons during the month of Ramadan, the only thing the Security Council was able to accomplish this week was a three-month extension of the mandate of a 7,000-troop African Union force, which the council has determined is inadequate to stop the killing in Darfur.

And while Iran’s nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, failed even to appear at Turtle Bay this week, President Ahmadinejad said yesterday, “The bottom line is we do not need a bomb.” Instead, he told reporters that he has nothing against Jews, though he opposes the “Zionist lobby.”

The Iranian president described that lobby as “a complex organization, a system that has been the source of many problems,” and called it “a small group that has a certain interest in wealth and power.” He added that he wants good relations with every nation except Israel and Apartheid South Africa, which was dismantled more than a decade before he became president.

The Security Council has yet to decide how to act on its threat to consider punitive measures against Iran, which did not suspend its uranium enrichment program by the August 31 deadline.

Ms. Livni, who earlier met nearby with Mr. Annan, chose not to attend the council’s meeting of foreign ministers yesterday, sending her U.N. envoy, Dan Gillerman, instead.

“Our experience has not always shown that this forum was helpful to advance peace rather than generate acrimony,” Mr. Gillerman told the council.