UK minister sees hopeful signs in West Asia

RAMALLAH, West Bank, Feb 7 (Reuters) Israel and Palestine could be edging towards a turning point in the effort to revive peace talks, British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett said today after meeting leaders on both sides of the conflict.

Beckett said her conversations with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and senior Palestinian officials ''confirmed a feeling I had that we could potentially be at a turning point''.

Beckett arrived in the West Asia on Monday amid the worst intra-Palestinian violence in decades and continued fighting between Israelis and Palestinians in the occupied West Bank. But she said that in the bleak outlook was a new movement for peace.

''There's been terrible violence ... but in a sense that is a further drive for peace. Governments here are weak ... but then that means they all have something to gain if they move forward for peace,'' she said.

Beckett denied Britain was talking up the prospects for progress in the long-stalled negotiations over the peace ''road map'' because Prime Minister Tony Blair is keen to see a breakthrough in his last months as premier.

Blair, faced with a political funding scandal and criticism of Britain's part in the U.S.-led war in Iraq, has made Middle East policy a priority of his last days in government. He is expected to step down in June or July.

OPPORTUNITY ''He would love it if it were possible to move things forward,'' Beckett said. ''He sees that there is potentially a real opportunity and he also sees that if that opportunity goes by it may not come again or maybe ever.'' Beckett said her meeting with Olmert revealed Israel was aware ''both that dangers of the position in which they find themselves are greater now than they've been for some time and that there is this potential opportunity''.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is in talks in Mecca with the ruling Palestinian Hamas Islamists to try to forge a national unity government and end Western sanctions, after gun battles between followers of the rival factions.

Western powers want Hamas to recognise Israel, renounce violence and abide by interim peace deals with the Jewish state.

British officials said Beckett was scheduled to hold a phone conversation with Abbas later.

''If they do come to a satisfactory conclusion - a government of unity that is based on ... principles that the international community can accept that will be a very encouraging sign,'' she said.

Olmert said on Tuesday he would meet Abbas and US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on February. 19.

REUTERS BDP PM2120