Blair: West Bank downward spiral halted but I want quicker progress
By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
In an interview summing up his efforts on Thursday, Quartet Middle East Envoy Tony Blair said he'd like to see much quicker progress toward freedom of movement for Palestinians.
After years of downward spiral, the situation "stopped going down in the West Bank, it started to go back up again, but not nearly fast enough," the former British prime minister said.
Despite the slow pace, Blair said he would stick with the assignment and keep slogging through the mundane details of the conflict, such as negotiating with Israel over the fate of individual checkpoints.
"For me, I'm content to work on it as long as I can and as long as I'm useful," he said, sitting in an office in the aluminum factory, NAPCO, in the village of Beit Iba, just outside the West Bank city of Nablus.