Abbas meets Blair
Palestine-Israel-UK, Politics, 2/21/2007

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas met Wednesday with the British Foreign Secretary, Margaret Beckett in London.

President Abbas briefed Beckett on the latest developments in the Palestinian territory as well as the issue of forming a national unity government.

The meeting focused on the reviving a meaningful peace process leading to a Palestinian independent state in lands occupied in 1967.

Abbas stressed Wednesday just and lasting peace in the Middle East cannot be achieved without solving the Palestinian cause on the basis of two-state solution living side by side in peace and stability.

"We are really concerned about getting the kind of peace that is based on a two-state solution - Israel and Palestine - which live in security and peace side by side," President Abbas said at a press conference after his meeting in London with British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

President Abbas said we are committed to rejecting violence, to international law and to meeting all agreements reached previously with Israel.

For his part, Blair said that the new Palestinian unity government must abide by the conditions laid out by the Quartet of Middle East peace negotiators.

"Obviously, there's going to be a lot of negotiation and talking over the formation of the national unity government. And it's important, as I said to President Abbas, that that conforms to the principals laid down by the so-called Quartet of Middle East peacemakers," Blair said.

He predicted a difficult time in future negotiations, but said, "I have no doubt that the president (Abbas) is sincerely and completely committed to this."

"I would like to pay tribute to the president's vigor and determination in moving this forward."

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