IDF checkpoint
Photo: AP
'Significant first step.' Blair
Photo: Uriah Tidmor
Blair says Israel agreed to ease West Bank restrictions
Israel will scrap one checkpoint near Hebron this week and remove or relocate several others 'once Israel determines the security situation so allows', Quartet's Mideast envoy says
Israel has agreed to ease travel and trade restrictions on Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, Middle East envoy Tony Blair said on Tuesday, seeking to bolster peace talks.
IDF Roadblocks
Quartet envoy calls on Israel to remove additional roadblocks in West Bank. 'Removing one checkpoint is not enough,' he tells Sky News
"This is a first step but it is a significant first step," Blair told a news conference.
"It will make a marked improvement," he said, adding that the changes would over time "significantly" improve north-south and east-west movement within the West Bank.
Blair said Israel would scrap one checkpoint near the West Bank city of Hebron this week, and remove or relocate several others, including one at Beit El near Ramallah, which would be moved "once Israel determines the security situation so allows."
The envoy had presented Israel with a list of a total of 12 checkpoints, roadblocks and other barriers in the West Bank he wanted removed, but it agreed to take only some of the proposed steps for now.
Blair's list was the first of its kind presented by the former British prime minister since world powers appointed him last June to spearhead efforts to revive the Palestinian economy.
Blair made the announcement a day before a visit by US President George W. Bush to celebrate Israel's 60th anniversary.
Israeli officials had no immediate comment.
'Income in Gaza, West Bank could shrink'
Palestinians say Israel's network of hundreds of checkpoints and roadblocks in the West Bank amounts to collective punishment, stifles their economy and undermines support for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
But Israel has long balked at removing major checkpoints, arguing they are necessary to stop suicide bombers entering its cities.
Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert launched US-backed peace talks in November with the aim of reaching a deal before Bush leaves office in January. The negotiations have shown little sign of progress so far.
Western pressure has been mounting on Olmert to do more to ease travel restrictions and take other steps to shore up Abbas, whose authority has been limited to the West Bank since Hamas Islamists took over the Gaza Strip in June.
While maintaining restrictions in the West Bank, Israel has tightened its economic and military cordon of the Gaza Strip since Hamas seized the coastal territory.
Despite $7.7 billion in aid pledged to the Palestinians in December, the World Bank has cautioned that per capita income in the Gaza Strip and West Bank could shrink this year because of Israel's restrictions.
Following a recent visit by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Israel announced plans to remove 61 barriers in the West Bank. But a UN survey subsequently found that only 44 of the 61 obstacles had been scrapped and most of them were of little or no significance.
