New York  - Israel's Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni reiterated Thursday a warning often heard from her government that the current conflict in the Middle East is between extremist and moderate militants and not between Israelis and Palestinians.

Livni was at United Nations headquarters in New York for talks with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon about the situation in the region and the "global threat" of Iran.

"I believe the threats we (Israelis) are facing make the world understand that the situation in the region has changed," she told reporters. "It is not anymore a conflict between Israel and the Palestinians or the Arabs, but a conflict between extremists and moderates."

Livni said she is the head negotiator for the peace process with the Palestinian Authority and as such was seeking for a common ground with the Palestinians to achieve the two-state solution advocated by the UN, the European Union, the United States and Russia.

The two-state solution, with the creation of a Palestinian state living in peace next to Israel, was reinforced by the conference in Annapolis last year sponsored by the White House.

Livni was in Washington Wednesday for talks with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Palestinian envoys.

In New York, she called for a UN role in the Middle East peace process.

Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak also visited Ban on Wednesday and called for tough UN sanctions to prevent Iran from producing nuclear weapons.

Iran has said its uranium enrichment programme was intended for civilian nuclear energy use and not for making weapons. It rejected UN demands for it to suspend all enrichment activities. (dpa)