Outgoing British Prime Minister Tony Blair will be named tomorrow as special envoy for the international diplomatic Quartet on the Middle East with a portfolio focused on Palestinian economic and political reform, a senior US official has said.
Members of the quartet, the United States, United Nations, European Union and Russia, will give their public blessing and announce that Blair has agreed to take the job in simultaneous statements from their capitals and New York.
The official, who insisted on anonymity because the statements are still being drafted, spoke after being briefed on a meeting of quartet representatives held earlier Tuesday in Jerusalem.
The quartet gathering came a day after the Israeli, Palestinian, Egyptian and Jordanian leaders held a summit in a unified stance against Hamas and its stunning takeover of the Gaza Strip.
Yesterday's summit at an Egyptian resort on the Red Sea was meant to bolster Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, whose Western-backed Fatah party was severely weakened by the Hamas victory.
The Hamas takeover has left the Palestinians with two governments — Abbas' new Cabinet based in the West Bank, and the Hamas rulers of Gaza, who are internationally isolated.
Three U.S. officials said Monday that discussions on naming Blair to the envoy post had been completed and the issue was on the Quartet's agenda today.
Blair himself did not rule out the idea.
"I think that anybody who cares about greater peace and stability in the world knows that a lasting and enduring resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian issue is essential," he said in London. "As I have said on many occasions, I would do whatever I could to help such a resolution come about."
The senior US official said the quartet had agreed on a job description for the special envoy position that Blair will assume shortly after leaving office tomorrow, the senior official said, disputing reports in the Israeli media that Russia was holding up an official announcement.
"The Russians are the least enthusiastic about creating the position and least enthusiastic about Blair, but they didn't object," the official said. "No one objected."
Blair's new job will deal primarily with helping the Palestinian Authority build political institutions and will not, at least at first, involve direct mediation or negotiation between the Palestinians and Israelis, the official said, noting that the quartet itself "retains the right to be the interlocutor between the Israelis and Palestinians."
AP