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Secretary Clinton and Tony Blair hold Middle East talks at "difficult moment"

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Quartet Representative Tony Blair met today in Washington DC to discuss the latest developments in the Middle East peace process at what he described as "a difficult moment" for the region.

Speaking to reporters before their talks, Secretary Clinton welcomed Mr Blair back to the State Department saying: "As you know, he is the representative from the Quartet in the Middle East and has been working very hard to improve the economic well-being of the Palestinians, to look for ways to enhance cooperation between the Palestinians and the Israelis, and we're looking forward to catching up on the latest developments in the Middle East."

Tony Blair thanked her saying: "It's a pleasure to be back here in the State Department. And I'd like to thank Clinton for welcoming me here, and to say that together, we will keep working along, of course, with Senator Mitchell, to do everything we can to make progress between the Israelis and the Palestinians."

Since becoming Quartet Representative, Tony Blair has stressed the need to create a context to launch credible political negotiations at the same time as carrying on the work of building a Palestinian state from the bottom up. That means both trying to encourage the West Bank economy, but also critically to relieve the situation in Gaza and start to get Palestinian politics to come around to a more unified position.

Tony Blair concluded: "It's a difficult moment right now -- but then it always is -- but we're going to keep working on it very hard in order to try and bring about a change in circumstances that allow us to get into negotiations and make real progress."
Since being appointed as Quartet Representative, Tony Blair has been working with the Palestinians to improve their economy and build the necessary governance and security capacity for statehood.

You can watch the remarks from Secretary Clinton and Tony Blair here