DAR AL HARB/ISLAM - THE WEST: THE 'QUARTET' & THEIR NEW ENVOY, BLAIR, ARE TO MEET

Mideast Quartet to meet with new envoy Blair

LISBON - Leaders of the Middle East Quartet meet former British prime minister Tony Blair here on Thursday, with the focus on his role as their new special envoy against a backdrop of a renewed US push for peace.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, UN chief Ban Ki-Moon, EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov are all due in Portugal, current holders of the rotating EU presidency.

Blair, appointed after his resignation as prime minister on June 27, is expected to set out his plans to lay the groundwork for a future Palestinian state and discuss his remit in the role.

Reports have suggested that the Palestinians want Blair’s mandate to be widened, in particular to negotiate with the militant Islamist group Hamas, but that the United States is opposed, branding it a terrorist group.

Discussions were also likely to focus on US President George W. Bush’s call Monday for fresh impetus in the peace process, including an international conference within months to revive talks in the decades-old conflict.

US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack, speaking in Washington Tuesday, warned against hopes of concrete outcomes from the meeting.

“I’m not sure that this is going to be a meeting with any new announcements,” he told reporters.

“But there’s a lot that has happened over the past couple of weeks and it’s a good opportunity for them to get together, take stock of what has happened... as well as to look ahead and chart a course out for the next several months,” he said.

The Quartet’s top diplomats had been due to meet in June but that was postponed after Hamas seized power in Gaza following bitter fighting with forces loyal to Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas’s Fatah movement.

The United Nations has described the meeting as coming at a ”crucial moment” because of recent events, and said it would allow the group’s main diplomats to discuss the future direction on the stalled “road map” to peace.

In his speech Monday, Bush threw his support behind Abbas and Fatah by saying that the planned conference, to be chaired by Rice, would be limited to countries who accept the Quartet principles.

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