MIDDLE EAST:British prime minister Tony Blair yesterday called on the international community to back Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas, just a day after members from the Palestinian president's Fatah party and Hamas militants battled in the Gaza Strip in some of the worst factional violence since the Palestinian Authority was created 12 years ago.
"It is important that the international community comes behind a moderate Palestinian leadership," Mr Blair said, adding that an initiative was in the works to ensure aid "so President Abbas can do more for his people".
Mr Blair's visit comes as long-simmering tensions between Hamas and Fatah are boiling over, sparked by Mr Abbas' call over the weekend for new elections.
The Palestinian leader made the move after months of fruitless negotiations with the ruling Hamas party over the creation of a national unity government.
Hamas leaders have said they will boycott an early election.
"It is important for us, but I think for the whole international community, to work with people who want a genuine two-state solution," Mr Blair said at a press conference with Mr Abbas in Ramallah.
"If the international community really means what it says . . . then now is the time for the international community to respond to the vision you have set out," added Mr Blair, who came to the area as part of a tour that has taken him to Turkey, Egypt and Iraq and which he says is aimed at boosting moderate forces in the Muslim world.
Despite the factional violence, Mr Abbas said he was determined to push ahead with new elections. "We are going to hold early elections, parliamentary and presidential," he declared. "There is nothing we can see that can stop us."
Despite the ceasefire reached late Sunday night, there were sporadic outbursts of violence yesterday in Gaza. A Fatah activist was killed and several were injured when they were attacked by gunmen toward evening in the northern part of the coastal strip. In another incident, masked gunmen kidnapped the brother of a Fatah lawmaker. Earlier in the day, Fatah and Hamas militants exchanged fire near the Hamas-controlled foreign ministry in Gaza City.
Last night gunmen kidnapped Sufyan Abu Zaideh, a former minister of prisoner affairs and a senior Fatah figure.
He was released after Fatah kidnapped 11 Hamas activists in response and threatened to execute some of them. The Hamas activists were expected to be released last night.
Speaking after his meeting yesterday evening with prime minister Ehud Olmert in Jerusalem, Mr Blair said he would be prepared to engage Hamas once the Islamic group had agreed to support a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict - "that means recognising Israel".
Mr Blair said Hamas would also have to accept Israeli-Palestinian interim peace accords and renounce violence. Asked about recent overtures by Syrian president Bashar Assad to Israel to engage in peace talks, Mr Blair said that if Damascus "made a choice to be constructive . . . to support democratic governments and not undermine them" - a clear reference to the government in Lebanon - then he was "open to being constructive".