JERUSALEM/GAZA: U.K.'s Blair aims to foster Middle East dialogue, meets with Israel's Olmert

Israeli leader Ehud Olmert told Tony Blair on Saturday (September 9) he was ready to meet the Palestinian president as the British Prime Minister began a visit to try to revive Middle East peace negotiations. "I intend to meet with Chairman Abbas in order to make a real progress on the outstanding issues on our mutual agenda. The issue that it is our first priority with the Palestinians naturally is the immediate release of Corporal Gilad Shalit," Olmert told a joint news conference with British Prime Minister Tony Blair in Jerusalem. Blair said he believed it would be possible to make progress on the road map, which has been held up by the failure of both Israelis and Palestinians to meet commitments. Blair met Olmert on Saturday at the start of a Middle East visit aimed at encouraging Israelis and Palestinians to take the first steps back towards the negotiating table. Peace talks collapsed in 2000 before the start of a Palestinian uprising. Olmert and Blair discussed the 34-days war between Israel and Hizbollah and the implementation of U.N. Resolution 1701 that ended the fighting less than a month ago. The two leaders also discussed Iran and its nuclear programme. Blair said that the international community's will regarding Iran's nuclear weapons aspirations needs to be adhered to. "I can assure you that as far as we are concerned that we will hold absolutely firm on that issue," Blair said. Flying into Israel, Blair left behind feuding in Britain's ruling party that forced him to concede this week that he will leave office within a year. The Lebanon conflict forced Olmert to acknowledge this week he was shelving his centrepiece plan to unilaterally withdraw from parts of the occupied West Bank in the absence of peace negotiations with the Palestinians. But the Lebanon war has only reinforced Blair's belief in the importance of trying to restart a peace process that collapsed in 2000 before the start of a Palestinian uprising. Blair is expected to meet in the West Bank town of Ramallah on Sunday (September 10) with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, whose Fatah faction was trounced by Hamas in parliamentary elections in January. Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas accused Blair of "one-sided" policies that have punished the Palestinian people and their elected government. Haniyeh, in a column in Britain's Guardian newspaper ahead of Blair's visit to the region, said there were signs that "the British public is unhappy about what Blair's government has been doing to our people". Hamas spokesman in Gaza, Mushir al-masri, accused Blair of being biased towards Israel in its policies in the Middle East. "The visit of the British Prime Minister Tony Blair is not welcomed in the region and in the Palestinian arena, particularly because of the siege that is imposed on the Palestinian people, the financial, political and economical siege. This level of situation the Palestinian arena have reached is because of the intentional biased approach taken by Britain towards the Zionist enemy and the obvious following up on the American administration on every little and big matter," al-Masri told Reuters Television. Britain has backed a Western aid boycott of the Hamas-led government, preventing it from paying salaries to 165,000 workers since March. Partial payments have been made in recent months using funds from European and Arab donors. Haniyeh accused Blair of caring more about freeing three captured Israeli soldiers -- one held by Gaza militants and two by Hizbollah guerrillas in Lebanon -- than about the fate of Hamas government ministers, Hamas lawmakers and thousands of other Palestinians held in Israeli jails. Blair has come under fire at home during Israel's 34-day war with Hizbollah for lining up with the United States in refusing to back Lebanon's demands for an immediate truce. For the tens of thousands of Israelis who gathered in Tel Aviv on Saturday night, many questions remain. Tens of thousands attended the mass demonstration in Rabin square in the central Tel Aviv, demanding the Israeli government authorize a state inquiry to probe the handling of the war in Lebanon. It was the largest public show of dissatisfaction with Olmert since he took office in May. Polls show his popularity has tumbled amid public frustration with Israel's failure to crush Hizbollah guerrillas. Police said a crowd of upwards of 30,000 thronged Rabin Square in central Tel Aviv, Israel's main venue for demonstrations. Many of those in a crowd that spilled into nearby streets were reservists who served during the war. Speakers complained that the army had been ill-equipped and civilians ill prepared to face Hizbollah rockets that rained on northern Israel during the fighting. A total of 1,200 Lebanese, a majority civilians, and 157 Israelis, two thirds of them soldiers, were killed in the war. He has vowed to hold an internal probe of the war, under a panel his cabinet has yet to name. Israeli media said the cabinet was likely to put off a decision on naming the panel that had been expected on Sunday. "I feel that things need to be changed. We were misled by our leader," said protester Eliyahu Yahav. "I think him and his friends need to be changed," he added. Another protester said that majority of Israelis support the protest. "I think that a lot of people here and a lot of supporters around and I think that there is a big stress and a big power that drives the demand for inquiry so that is why we are here," said protester Yuval Cohen.

ITN Source | September 11, 2006

Tags:. .belief. .inquiry. .assure. .outstanding. .lebanese