Crucial weeks for Middle East, says Blair

The next few days and weeks will be crucial in determining whether Israel and the Palestinians can move toward peace, prime minister Tony Blair said today.

Blair is travelling through the Middle East amid escalating violence between rival Palestinian factions that have seen kidnappings and gun battles in the West Bank and Gaza.

“If we don’t get a new sense of urgency and momentum to the situation, it will continue to go backwards,” Blair said.

“The next few days and weeks are critical moments of decision for the whole process.”

Blair spoke after talks in Ankara with his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who Blair sees as a key ally in the quest for an Israeli-Palestinian peace settlement that could stabilise the whole region.

After Turkey, Blair will visit Egypt, Israel, the Palestinian Territories and the United Arab Emirates over the next few days, Erdogan said at a joint news conference with Blair.

“The most important thing is that on the Palestinian side, one way or another, we have a fully functioning authority that the rest of us can deal with, support, and give financial assistance to ... that is what I hope we’ll be able to agree on during the course of the visit,” Blair said.

Blair is a strong backer of Turkey’s bid to become the first majority-Muslim EU member, and he sees the country as a key player in his bid to fashion an “arc of moderation” that can ease tensions in the Middle East.

That theme – drawing moderate Muslim nations closer to the West in a bid to defuse extremism and stabilise the region – was the keynote of Blair’s trip.

“Turkey is placed right between the Middle East and Europe. If we needed no other reminder of the strategic importance of Turkey to the European Union, it is what is happening in the Middle East today,” Blair said.

At a summit in Brussels on Thursday, EU leaders endorsed a decision to partially freeze Turkey’s membership talks over its refusal to open ports and airports to EU member Cyprus, whose government Turkey does not recognise.

Blair sought to use the visit to reassure the Turkish government about its prospects for EU entry. He called on the EU to end isolation of the breakaway Turkish Cypriot state.

He said he would like to see the start of direct flights to the Turkish-Cypriot airport of Ercan and said that British officials were examining international aviation rules to determine whether direct flights were possible.