Abbas: Ready to meet Olmert immediately

VIDEO - Following a meeting with British Prime Minister Tony Blair in Ramallah, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said Sunday: "I am ready to immediately meet with Prime Minister OImert in order to resume the diplomatic process." Not far from the meeting place, dozens of Palestinians protested against Blair's visit. The Hamas government also stressed that the British prime minister was not wanted due to his stance over the conflict. The Palestinian president said in a press conference after the visit that "we must find an appropriate mechanism to resume the diplomatic process, because the end of the conflict in the Middle East will only be enables when the Palestinians' rights are achieved, when we establish our sovereign state with the capital of Jerusalem and when the refugees' problem is solved." Abbas added that in the meeting Blair was presented with the serious condition in the territories and the need to operate in order to emerge from the current crisis. "To accomplish that, Israel must halt its overall aggressiveness, the economic siege, the assassinations, the blockades, the collective punishment, and release tens of thousands of prisoners, including ministers and leaders and other senior officials," he said. Abbas said that the Palestinian leadership was exerting great efforts to establish a unity government which will bring the current crisis to an end, achieve a mutual truce and operate to end the affair of the kidnapped Israeli soldier in the Gaza Strip, while solving the problem of thousands of Palestinian prisoners. The Palestinian president added that he hoped the establishment of the government and its activities according to international decisions will ease the situation. "It's time to stop the suffering of the Palestinians and the historical injustice we are suffering from. The Palestinians must live in dignity and prosperity in an independent state of their own. Only in the past few weeks more than 250 Palestinians were killed, more than 40 of them children," Abbas said. Blair: Solving conflict a top priority The British prime minister emphasized that solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict should be a top priority, especially now as there is an opportunity which must be utilized in order to promote the process. Blair lauded Abbas' efforts to establish a broad Palestinian government and commented further that the world should restore contacts with the Palestinians if the ruling Hamas group forms a government with more moderate factions. But Hamas immediately rejected his conditions for establishing dialogue with such a government. According to Blair's statements, the unity government would have to accept the requirements set by international Mideast peacemakers -renouncing violence, recognizing Israel and accepting previous peace agreements with the Jewish state. "If such a government is formed, I believe it is right that the international community deal with such a government," said Blair, who has refused to meet with members of the Hamas-led government on this trip. Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said the group was ready to ready to form a coalition government with Fatah, but "not according to standards that are dictated..I want to renew our rejection of these (Western) decisions because we consider them as biased, unjust and conditional decisions," he said. The Associate Press also contributed to this report

Abbas: Ready to meet Olmert immediately

(VIDEO) Palestinian president meets with British prime minister, calls to establish appropriate mechanism to renew diplomatic process. Blair calls for broad Palestinian government, 'which will hold dialogue with international community'