Blair: Middle East peace is crucial
Tony Blair today said there was no current issue of more “pressing political relevance” than ensuring peace between Israelis and Palestinians.
The Prime Minister was addressing officials from 23 countries and six world bodies who have gathered in London to assess how the Palestinian Authority can work with Israel to bring peace to the Middle East.
“We are all of us here with one united purpose,” Mr Blair said, reiterating the aim to bring about the long hoped for two-state solution, with “Israel confident of its security and a viable Palestinian state”.
He welcomed the efforts of the Palestinian Authority under the leadership of Mahmoud Abbas in preparing for this conference as an important step towards the overall goal.
Mr Blair sought to underline the significance of the Middle East peace process, stressing that it was not confined to that region but actually extended to the wider international community.
“It is probably the cause most used or abused by those who try to rally support for extremism,” he said. As such, progress made on this was “also enhancing the security of every one of the countries represented around this table today”.
Given this, Mr Blair stressed that the response to terrorists who attempted to derail the process had to be to ‘redouble our efforts’ to ensure a “fair and just” solution could be found.
He described the election of President Abbas as an extremely important event that had rallied the Palestinian people. Mr Blair also paid tribute to the efforts of Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon resulting in disengagement and highlighted the importance of the recent meeting between the Israeli and Palestinian leaders in Sharm El Sheiek.
However, “despite these good signals of progress, this is still a fragile enterprise”, Mr Blair warned.
“This is a moment of opportunity and it is vital that we seize it. I am convinced that we can,” he said.
However, Mr Blair warned that the peace process would not come about as a result of mere expressions of goodwill, but would require a “patient hard slog” looking at the detail of the plans and in monitoring the day-to-day management of the process.
Representatives from the World Bank, IMF and permanent Security Council states Russia and China are in attendance in London, but Israel is not officially represented.
Foreign ministers from Algeria, Bahrain, Canada, China, Egypt, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Jordon, Kuwait, Luxembourg, Morocco, Norway, Oman, Qatar, Russia, Spain, Tunisia, UAE, and the US are also at the meeting.
