Blair urges push for Middle East peace

Tony Blair

LONDON - British Prime Minister Tony Blair called for the international community today to push hard for a negotiated Israeli-Palestinian peace or risk seeing Israel pursue selective redeployment in the occupied West Bank.

Speaking at a news conference after talks with Israel's Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Blair said the key was to press the new Palestinian government under Islamic militant group Hamas to renounce violence and accept coexistence with the Jewish state.

"The reality is this thing has got to be moved forward by negotiation, or we are in a stalemate that Israel is necessarily and realistically going to want to unlock," Blair said.

But he stopped short of endorsing Olmert's vision, whereby dozens of Jewish settlements in the West Bank would be removed and others annexed behind a fortified Israeli border taking in swathes of occupied land where Palestinians want a state.

Olmert was in London to promote a "realignment plan" that he calls a stopgap measure in the absence of peace, and to urge a strong European stand on arch-foe Iran's nuclear programme. He will meet French President Jacques Chirac in Paris tomorrow.

Britain and France have had supporting roles in navigating a beleaguered "road map" for ending more than 5 years of Middle East fighting and founding a peaceful Palestinian state.

"We, the international community, have got a choice," Blair said. "We either put our best effort into making sure that negotiated settlement becomes a reality, or we are going to face a different reality." Olmert's unilateral proposal was dubbed "bold" by US President George W Bush.

Yet the Europeans share Arab fears that it could deprive Palestinians of viable statehood.

Olmert said he favours a return to talks on a two-state peace accord, but on condition Hamas, which formally seeks Israel's destruction, softens its stance.

"One thing will not happen: a stalemate," Olmert said.

"Either we move in this direction, and we will make every possible effort, or there will be another reality ... and this reality is moving forward in order to change the present status quo in the Middle East."

In a later briefing to reporters, Olmert declined to say how long he would give Hamas and Abbas before Israel goes it alone.

"I don't play the ultimatum game," he said.

Olmert is expected to hold a first summit with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas soon. But he rejected the implication this would entail opening negotiations on a two-state accord.

"I did not say I am going to negotiate with him. I will meet him and do everything necessary to consolidate a proper range of expectations," Olmert said, reiterating that he expects Abbas to curb Hamas.

Olmert, for his part, hinted that Israel could resume its controversial assassination of Hamas leaders, including Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, if the militant group resumes its suicide-bomb campaigns against Israelis.

"Whoever's involved in terror will not enjoy immunity," he said.

Olmert had similarly strong words about Iran, which Israel, believed to have the Middle East's only nuclear arsenal, considers a potential threat to its existence. Tehran refuses to recognise Israel but says its nuclear programme is for energy.

"Israel will not tolerate a nuclear-armed Iran," Olmert said. He declined to be drawn on whether an Israeli preemptive military strike against Iran was possible, but voiced support for European-led efforts to negotiate a compromise.

- REUTERS