Moscow will support Blair

Former British Prime Minister will tackle the Middle East problem

The situation in Gaza will be the main topic of today's negotiations between Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in Jerusalem and with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah, the administrative center of the West Bank. The same issue was discussed yesterday in Tel Aviv at the meetings of Sergei Lavrov with Israeli President Shimon Peres and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni. The meeting of the head of Russian diplomacy with representatives of the Islamist movement Hamas, the Russian Foreign Ministry reported, is not planned.

Mr. Lavrov learned about how the Quartet of Middle Eastern mediators sees the situation from the Russian Ambassador-at-Large Sergei Yakovlev, who participated yesterday in a meeting of special representatives of the Quartet - Russia, the EU, the UN and the United States. Diplomats meeting at the American consulate in Jerusalem agreed that it was necessary to prevent a humanitarian crisis in Gaza. The possibility of holding a ministerial-level Quartet meeting in Egypt on July 16 and appointing Tony Blair, who is leaving the post of British Prime Minister today, as a special envoy of the Quartet was also discussed.

On the Blair issue, “there was no decision,” Sergei Lavrov said at a joint press conference with Shimon Peres. But Moscow will support his candidacy , since last night President Vladimir Putin, in a telephone conversation with Blair, who called him, expressed the hope that the rich experience of this statesman “will find effective use in helping to solve pressing international problems.” The former prime minister will apparently be tasked with assisting Abbas in organizing the work of government agencies and carrying out political and economic reforms.

But the Islamists from Hamas immediately recalled that Blair is an ally of the United States in the wars against Afghanistan and Iraq. “He left his black fingerprints on the history of the people of Palestine by supporting the terror of the Zionist occupation,” the Hamas press service said.

The Israelis also told Sergei Lavrov about the work of the emergency Middle East summit. The day before yesterday, four key players in regional politics met at the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh - Olmert, Abbas, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and King Abdullah II of Jordan. They confirmed the legality of Abbas's actions in the context of the coup carried out by Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip. None of the summit participants benefit from the transformation of the Palestinian enclave, sandwiched between Israel and Egypt, into a stronghold of radicals.

A separate meeting between Olmert and Abbas also took place. The Palestinian president has been promised regular financial transfers - we are talking about hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes from Palestinians working in Israel and duties on goods imported into the autonomy. “The population of the West Bank will feel how much better it is to follow the path of peace,” Olmert assured, emphasizing that Gaza civilians will receive water, electricity and humanitarian aid. On Smolensk Square they welcomed “the measures of the Israeli leadership to unfreeze tax and customs duties due to the Palestinian Authority.”

Heeding Abbas's requests, the Israeli prime minister decided to release 250 activists of the Fatah presidential movement, “if there is no blood on their hands and they promise not to engage in terrorist activities.” It is not known whether among them is Marwan Barghouti, a popular leader of the Tanzim paramilitary group among Palestinians, who is serving a life sentence, for whom Abbas made a special request. Olmert announced his intention to meet with Abbas once every two weeks. Apparently, during this time, Israel will respond to the request of the head of the autonomy to allow the transfer from Jordan to the West Bank of the elite Fatah formation - the Badr Brigade, a thousand of whose fighters were trained in the kingdom with US money and under the guidance of Jordanian instructors.

Alexander SAMOKHOTKIN