World

Blair Makes Mideast Breakthrough

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

April 20, 1998 / 8:36 AM EDT / CBS

British Prime Minister Tony Blair said Monday the United States would invite Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Yasser Arafat to peace talks in London on May 4.

"The United States, we understand, has said or is going to say shortly they will invite both the president of the Palestinians and the government of Israel to bilateral meetings in London on the fourth of May," Blair told a news conference in Gaza.

In Washington, the State Department confirmed that U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright would meet the Israeli and Palestinian leaders in the British capital on May 4 to seek a breakthrough in long-stalled peace efforts.

Arafat responded positively, saying: "We welcome this invitation." He said he wanted a meeting with Israel in which the United States and the Europeans would participate.

"We are seeking a four-way meeting. Our position has always been that the European Union must have a vital, effective role in this peace process," Arafat told the Gaza news conference.

Sunday, Netanyahu said he was prepared to travel anywhere in the next month, including London, to try to break a year-long peacemaking impasse.

A senior aide to Netanyahu, David Bar-Illan, said Monday that efforts were under way for Albright to meet Netanyahu and Arafat separately.

Blair, fresh from securing a peace deal in Northern Ireland, said Britain would not play any role in the talks that "cuts across the United States," the main mediator in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

The British leader said the talks would focus on U.S. proposals on ending the stalemate and that he hoped to meet with the parties to discuss economic issues.

Blair, whose country holds the European Union's rotating presidency, is on a Middle East tour to present EU ideas on ways to break a deadlock in Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking.

In Gaza, Blair was expected to unveil plans for a new EU-Palestinian committee on counter-terrorism and security. He was also expected to try to make progress on opening a new airport and developing an industrial park in Gaza.

Hours before Blair arrived in Gaza, Mothers of Palestinian Prisoners jailed in Israel held a rally demanding the prisoners' release.

U.S. special envoy Dennis Ross failed last month to narrow wide differences between Netanyahu and Arafat and is due back in the region late this week for more talks.

Washington is proposing a staged Israeli troop withdrawal from more of the West Bank in exchange for reciprocal Palestinian steps to combat Muslim militants.

Israel has called the reported U.S. proposal for a pullback from 13.1 percent of the West Bank unacceptable.

U.S. special envoy Dennis Ross failed last month to narrow wide differences between Netanyahu and Arafat and is due back in the region late this week for more talks.

Peace negotiations between Israelis an Palestinians broke down last year amid Jewish settlement building on occupied Arab land and suicide bombings in Israel by Palestinian militants.