British Prime Minister Tony Blair on Sunday offered a spur to the deadlocked Middle East peace process by offering to recognise a future Palestinian power-sharing government, even if it includes ministers from Hamas.
Speaking after a meeting with the Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, Blair said the international community should support a government of national unity agreed between Hamas and Abbas’s more dovish Fatah party. This was conditional on the government as a whole recognising Israel, renouncing violence and accepting past interim peace deals.
”If such a government is formed, I believe it is right that the international community deal with such a government,” Blair said, on the second day of a three-day visit to the Middle East.
Hamas trounced Fatah in elections to the Palestinian assembly in January, but the West is boycotting the party over its refusal to recognise the state of Israel and give up violence. Blair has refused to meet Hamas leaders.
Sami Abu Zuhri, a spokesperson for Hamas, said it was ready to form a government with Fatah, but ”not according to standards that are dictated”.
”I want to renew our rejection of these decisions because we consider them as biased, unjust and conditional decisions,” he said. Hamas has said it intends to lead any national unity government.
Downing Street nonetheless took heart from Abbas’s remarks at a joint press conference, including the announcement that he was travelling to Gaza on Sunday to ”complete consultations” on establishing the new government.
”The dangerous stalemate on the Palestinian cause in the international arena” meant ”all parties would … benefit from the proper international environment,” Abbas said.
Downing Street was further encouraged by Abbas agreeing to meet Ehud Olmert, the Israeli Prime Minister, without pre-conditions. This matched the pledge made by Olmert at a meeting with Blair in Jerusalem on Saturday. Downing Street insisted neither offer had been guaranteed before the meeting.
Blair said he intended to return to the Middle East as prime minister. ”I hope I’m able to return to this region again. And as far as I’m concerned this issue, which I believe passionately in, will be as important as any other priority for me in the time that remains for me in office.”
Despite the grim outlook for the peace process and Blair’s intense unpopularity in Palestine and Muslim states, Blair believes he can help restart talks.
”For the past few months the situation has gone backwards and not forwards, so the question is how we re-energise this process to move forward again,” he said. There was ”a window of opportunity here even though it may seem very bleak”.
Several times on the visit Downing Street has drawn parallels with the Northern Ireland peace process, which it believes shows how progress can be made in unlikely circumstances. Blair’s spokesperson drew a comparison between Hamas and Sinn Féin, which he said had not yet recognised Northern Ireland as a separate entity: ”The time to judge the importance of this trip will not be next week, it will be in the weeks and months to come.”
There was a small demonstration on Sunday against Blair’s visit when a dozen Palestinians gathered in Ramallah with placards with slogans such as: ”Blair peace-breaker, not peacemaker.”
Kirsty Sutherland (29) a Briton from Elgin, Scotland, who works for the Palestinian Medical Relief Society, got into the press conference sporting a T-shirt which read: ”Tony Blair you make me ashamed to be British.” She said her protest was ”because of Palestine, Lebanon, Iraq, Afghanistan — the list is almost endless”.
Abbas thanked Blair’s efforts to ”support the Palestinian cause in a fair and comprehensive way”, citing his influence with the EU and his ”special relations with President Bush”.
But his praise was faint by comparison with Olmert, who called him ”one of the greatest world fighters against terror”, ”a true and profound friend of the state of Israel and a dedicated friend of the Middle East”. – Guardian Unlimited Â