Blair: Peace talks must tackle core issues

RENEWED peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians must tackle core issues including Jerusalem, Middle East envoy Tony Blair has said.

The remarks have raised the spectre of a clash with Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“Unless you’re dealing with the core issues, then the negotiation, I don’t know what it is about,” Blair, envoy for the Quartet of Middle East mediators, the US, the European Union, the United Nations and Russia, said yesterday. “It will be the substance that matters.”