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(AP Photo/Leon Neal, Pool)
Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, working as a Quartet envoy since he left Downing Street last summer, attends a meeting of Middle East peace Quartet, Friday, May 2, 2008 in London. The Middle East peace Quartet held talks in London on Friday and called on Israel to freeze continuing settlement construction in the West Bank to keep the peace process from collapsing.

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Filed under: LONDON , GREGORY KATZ , Britain Quartet Mideast

LONDON (Map, News) - The Middle East peace Quartet urged Israel on Friday to cease all settlement activity in the West Bank to prevent the collapse of its peace process with the Palestinians.

Top diplomats from the so-called "Quartet" - the U.S., Russia, the European Union and the United Nations - issued a statement also calling for more Israel-Palestinian negotiations and an end to attacks from both sides.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, reading the statement after Friday's morning meeting, said the Quartet "expressed its deep concern" at Israel's continued settlement building on the West Bank and called for all outposts built since March 2001 to be dismantled.

He also expressed concern over worsening humanitarian conditions in the Gaza Strip.

The diplomats did not report any substantial progress during the Quartet meeting but former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice both said intense efforts were ongoing behind the scenes - and may bear fruit later this year.

Blair, a special envoy focusing on economic development in the West Bank, said he has been trying to convince the Israeli government to take a number of steps to ease checkpoints for the Palestinians so economic activity can speed up.

"These past few months we've been working on a series of proposals to improve conditions on the West Bank in particular," he said. "We're talking about trying to build a better life for ordinary Palestinians. I hope in the next few weeks to get a response from Israel."

Thus far, Blair's efforts to spur Palestinian economic growth have been largely stymied. However, he said some improvement was seen this year despite ongoing problems.

Rice said there is still hope that an agreement on a Palestinian state will be reached by the end of 2008 despite the lack of obvious progress.

"This is difficult work with a long and painful history," she said. "But as a veteran of another long and painful conflict, in Northern Ireland, Tony (Blair) would probably say: There is a lot of skepticism right up until there is a breakthrough."

Arye Mekel, a spokesman for Israel's Foreign Ministry, said Israel was not building new settlements and was only allowing "natural growth" in existing settlements.

"We have not changed our position on this," he said.

Mekel said there is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza because of Israel.

If there are difficulties, the criticism should be aimed at Hamas, which has turned Gaza into a terror entity," he said.

The Quartet meeting will give diplomats a chance to discuss the limited progress since a U.S.-sponsored meeting in Annapolis, Md., late last year tried to restart the Middle East peace process.

Ban will also meet with foreign ministers from a number of Arab states in an effort to develop economic institutions in the West Bank and Gaza.

British diplomats working on the agenda said Thursday it is important to keep the peace negotiations going, despite the extremely slow progress made in recent years. They conceded that little has been accomplished in recent months and that the situation in the region remains grave.

A Paris donor meeting last year netted $7.7 billion in aid pledges to the Palestinians over three years. The optimism that surrounded the pledges has long since faded, but diplomats are hopeful about an initiative to attract private sector investors.

Clovis Maksoud, a former Arab League ambassador who is now a professor of international law at American University in Washington, said he expects little progress.

"The Quartet meets periodically to keep the peace process going, but without any way to implement any kind of concrete results," he said.

A separate meeting will be held Friday afternoon to discuss the crisis over Iran's continuing nuclear program. Diplomats said they will discuss what to do next in an effort to persuade the Iranian government to drop its nuclear ambitions.