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Bekijk Volledige Versie : Blair doet Clintontruuk



mark61
10-09-06, 12:04
Weer eentje die iets Fantastisch wil achterlaten om te voorkomen dat hij in de vergetelheid raakt?

Blair meeting Palestinian leader

Tony Blair is meeting the president of the Palestinian Authority on the second day of his visit to the Middle East.
The prime minister's discussion with Mahmoud Abbas comes a day after he met the Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

Mr Olmert said he was ready to meet the Palestinian leader to advance peace efforts. It follows Mr Abbas's calls for fresh negotiations with Israel.

Mr Blair will not be meeting the leaders of the Hamas-controlled Palestinian government.

A Downing Street spokesman said: "The purpose of this visit was to hear the views from all sides so we came here today to hear the views of the Palestinian president.

'Dialogue'

"He will bring with him the views he heard from Prime Minister Olmert and look to hear Palestinian views and Palestinian concerns and try to see how we can get back to some sort of dialogue."

Britain, like the rest of the EU, is boycotting the Hamas administration.

Prior to his meeting with Mr Abbas, Mr Blair met with the families of Israeli soldiers seized by Islamic militants in Gaza and Lebanon.

A Downing Street spokesman said Mr Blair would raise the subject during his visit and hoped the men would be at home to celebrate the Jewish New Year later this month.

The prime minister's visit to the Middle East comes amid the continuing row over when he leaves office.

Mr Blair said the stability of the Middle East was essential to the rest of the world, including the UK.

"It's very easy to be pessimistic ... but I do believe that with goodwill and the right leadership it can be done," he said on Saturday. "It's very important that we see what we can do to re-energize this process."

"We worked very hard to get the only cease-fire that was ever going to be sustainable, and that was one based on the political framework set out in (UN) Resolution 1701," he said.

Speaking of the recent Lebanon conflict, Mr Blair said he wanted to work to make sure the UN resolution which ended the conflict was fully implemented.

"We worked very hard to get the only cease-fire that was ever going to be sustainable, and that was one based on the political framework set out in (UN) Resolution 1701," he said.

Mr Olmert said he was ready to begin talks with Mr Abbas to advance peace efforts.

The EU has insisted Hamas recognises Israel's right to exist before there can be any dialogue with the administration.


Mr Blair met Mr Olmert on Saturday

But Hamas argues the real problem has been Mr Blair's attachment to the US, which it says views the Middle East from Israel's perspective.

Civil servants, including teachers, have gone on strike because of wage freezes prompted by the EU boycott.

"There is a crisis. The economy is level zero. The security situation is very hard," Hamas spokesman Ghazi Hamad told the news agency AFP.

Israeli vice premier Shimon Peres told Israeli radio a plan for troops to pull out of parts of the occupied West Bank had "disappeared" in the wake of recent Hezbollah attacks, the Associated Press news agency said.

"We evacuated Gaza and Lebanon and they continued to fire from there like fools," Mr Peres was quoted as saying.

Ik weet niet of Olmert nou gewoon in paniek aan het zwalken is, of dat het zet # 3.476 is om de Palestijnen verdeeld te houden. Je praat met de regering of je praat niet. Denk ik dan.