London - Special Middle East envoy Tony Blair was Monday
reported to be set to unveil a series of new economic projects aimed
at generating jobs for tens of thousands of Palestinians, in an
effort to boost US-sponsored peace talks due next week.
The Guardian newspaper in London reported that, in his first major
initiative since taking over the job of special envoy of the Middle
East Quartet in June, former British prime minister Blair would
outline his multi-million-dollar plans, which include the creation of
industrial parks and agricultural ventures in the West Bank and Gaza.
The announcement would be made jointly with the Palestinian prime
minister, Salam Fayyad, and the Israeli defence minister, Ehud Barak,
in what was hoped would be a new spirit of cooperation, the Guardian
said in its report from Jerusalem.
The aim was to improve the atmosphere in the run-up to the talks
in Annapolis, in the US state of Maryland, the first major Israeli-
Palestinian peace negotiations for seven years, due next week.
Blair said that the projects would ultimately employ tens of
thousands of Palestinians and were 'also designed to give some sense
things could change on the ground,' the Guardian said.
They are expected to include a trade park in the West Bank town of
Jericho, linked to the Jordanian border by a trade corridor, and
potentially bypassing Israeli checkpoints which make doing business
in the occupied territories close to impossible.
A new sewerage system in Gaza is also planned, although it is
unclear how it would be built without the cooperation of the Islamic
militant group Hamas, which took over power in June.
'This is the part of the Blair mandate to find 'quick-impact
projects' and he wanted something out before Annapolis,' a British
official said.
'Some of them were existing projects that hadn't been able to get
off the ground before because of Israeli objections or funding
issues.'
The Quartet consists of the United States, Russia, the European
Union and the United Nations.
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur 
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