Blair plans permanent office in Mideast

JERUSALEM – Setting out with optimism, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair urged Israel and the Palestinians on Tuesday to seize on a “sense of possibility,” and made plans to set up a permanent office in the region to pursue his mission of laying the groundwork for Mideast peace.

More violence underscored Blair’s difficulties – an outbreak of factional clashes among rival Palestinians in the West Bank and an Israeli air raid against Palestinian extremists in the Gaza Strip.

Blair, who visited the region several times during his decade as prime minister, told the Palestinians his first trip as envoy for the “Quartet” of Mideast mediators was intended to gather input for formulating his strategy, officials said.

He had a working dinner with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert later Tuesday night and was due to leave early today.

Blair was to return in early September and hoped to have an office in place in Jerusalem for a full-time staff. His spokesman said conversations about office space at a U.N. complex were at an early stage, and that Blair himself plans to spend about one week every month in the area.

“I think there is a sense of possibility, but whether that sense of possibility can be translated into something, that is something that needs to be worked at and thought about over time,” Blair said after meeting Israeli President Shimon Peres.

Blair has been tasked by the Quartet – the United States, European Union, United Nations and Russia – to prepare the foundations for a stable, economically strong West Bank government that could lead the Palestinians into statehood, but to leave the hard political issues at the core of the Arab-Israeli conflict alone.