Britain To Have Talks With Israelis, Palestinians

U.S. President George W. Bush launched a new Middle East peace drive at a conference in Annapolis, Maryland, a year ago.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown will hold separate talks with Israeli and Palestinian leaders in London this month on the political and economic situation in the Middle East, he said on Wednesday.

"We are bringing Israeli and Palestinian leaders to London later in December to establish how best we can use 2009 to make real progress towards political and economic solutions in the region," Brown told parliament.

A spokesman for Brown said he had invited Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad to visit London on Dec. 15. Brown will hold separate talks with the two leaders but they will not meet each other.

"They will discuss the economic regeneration of Palestine and the prospects for peace in 2009," a Foreign Office spokeswoman said.

Brown's spokesman said Fayyad was coming to London for a Palestinian investment conference, a follow-up to a May meeting when private investors pledged to pump $1.4 billion into Palestinian businesses to bolster the economy.

Olmert resigned in September but continues serving in a caretaker capacity until after a Feb. 10 election.

Israel and the Palestinians launched U.S.-sponsored peace talks last year with the hope of reaching a deal by the end of 2008, but that deadline is not expected to be met.

In Washington, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair said U.S. President-elect Barack Obama had put together a "very strong" national security team and he was confident it would move quickly to take up the cause of Middle East peace.

Blair, the envoy for the Quartet of Middle East peace negotiators -- the European Union, Russia, the United Nations and the United States, said there would be no peace while Gaza remains removed from the process.

"There can only be one Palestinian state. It will combine Gaza and the West Bank," Blair told the Council on Foreign Relations. "However much we are tempted to set Gaza to one side ... it cannot be."

The Islamist group Hamas has run the Gaza Strip since defeating the Fatah group of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas there in July; Fatah runs the West Bank. Hamas refuses to recognize Israel's right to exist, while Abbas has been negotiating with Israel for Palestinian statehood.

Blair said a new strategy was needed that would make clear to Palestinians in Gaza that their lives could be better if they seek a peaceful solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni urged European Union parliamentarians on Tuesday to support U.S.-backed peace talks with the Palestinians, not promote separate initiatives.

Israelis generally see the Europeans as overly sympathetic to the Palestinians, and look to the United States as the main powerbroker.