The Middle East Quartet's mediators restated their support on
Thursday for an independent Palestinian state and voiced concerns
over the humanitarian conditions in Gaza.
"A Palestinian state is viable not only in terms of territories,
but also in terms of institutions and its capacity to manage them,"
former British prime minister Tony Blair told a press conference
after a Quartet meeting held in Lisbon, the first since he took the
post as its envoy.
"There will be no solution that does not accept the reality that
Israel has to be confident of its own security, and the other
reality is that the Palestinians are not going to go away (as) they
want their own state and we have to help them prepare for that,"
Blair said.
The meeting, which gathered US Secretary of State Condoleezza
Rice, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, European Union foreign
policy chief Javier Solana and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei
Lavrov, came after US President George W. Bush on Monday announced
his new Middle East initiative.
According to the plan, Rice will chair a conference in the
autumn that would include the Israelis, the Palestinians and their
Arab neighbors in an effort to reach a two-date solution.
Ban hailed the meeting, saying it "revitalized the commitment to
restarting negotiations to form an independent Palestinian
state."
He stressed the importance to develop Palestine's economy and to
establish the democratic institutions in the Palestinian
territories: the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.
"Alongside Blair we will do all we can in the Peace Conference
planned for this autumn," Ban said.
Meanwhile, Solana pledged that the Quartet will "continue
helping the Palestinian people that are in Gaza."
"The Quartet expressed its deep concern over the humanitarian
conditions in Gaza and agreed on the importance of continued
emergency and humanitarian assistance," said a Quartet statement
read by Ban.
(Xinhua News Agency July 20, 2007)
