GERMANY:A meeting of the Middle East quartet in Berlin has failed to make progress on recognising a unified Palestinian administration after US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice said the move would be "premature".
After two hours of talks the quartet, comprising the US, the EU, Russia and the UN, said they were anxious to bring Israelis and Palestinians closer together. However, that co-operation would depend on a unified Palestinian Hamas-Fatah authority renouncing violence.
At the Berlin meeting, the second in three weeks, the quartet agreed to meet again soon, with a sitting in a Middle Eastern country.
German foreign minister Frank Walter Steinmeier played down the lack of progress, saying: "What's important is that the quartet found its way back and that the international community speaks with one voice."
In London, British prime minister Tony Blair suggested it would be possible to move forward in the Middle East by dealing with "sensible" members of the Islamist Hamas party.
"I think there are possibilities for progress and I hope that in the coming weeks a framework to take this forward becomes a bit clearer," Mr Blair said in parliament, ahead of a meeting with Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas.
"It's far easier to deal with the situation in Palestine if there is a national unity government . . . I hope we can make progress, including even with the more sensible elements of Hamas."
The Palestinian leader asked Mr Blair to lobby Washington to accept a unity government formed from his Fatah party and Hamas.
Meanwhile, Dr Rice criticised a remark by a leading Russian general that Poland and the Czech Republic could be targets of Russian missiles if they hosted a new US missile defence system.