Blair urges push for West Asia peace

LONDON, June 12 (Reuters) British Prime Minister Tony Blair today called for the international community to push hard for Israel-Palestinian peace, or risk seeing Israel pursue its own course.

Speaking at a news conference after talks with Israel's Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Blair said the key was to get negotiations between the two sides moving forward.

''The reality is this thing has got to be moved forward by negotiation, or we are in a stalemate that Israel is necessarily and realistically going to want to unlock,'' Blair said.

Olmert was in London to lobby Blair for support for his West Bank redeployment plan and seek a strong European stand against the Hamas-led Palestinian government. He visits French President Jacques Chirac in Paris tomorrow.

Britain and France have played supporting roles in navigating a beleaguered ''road map'' to Israeli-Palestinian peace.

''We the international community have got a choice,'' Blair said.

''We either put our best effort into making sure that negotiated settlement becomes a reality, or we are going to face a different reality.'' Olmert's proposal to remove dozens of Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank while annexing others in the absence of peace talks has won US praise but faces political hurdles at home and the misgivings of moderate Arabs.

''One thing will not happen: a stalemate,'' Olmert said, stressing he wanted a negotiated solution to the stand off.

''Either we move in this direction, and we will make every possible effort, or there will be another reality ... and this reality is moving forward in order to change the present status quo in the West Asia'' Reuters SY GC2307