Abbas asks Blair to press Israel on checkpoints

RAMALLAH, West Bank, Sept 6 (Reuters) Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas asked West Asia envoy Tony Blair today to put pressure on Israel to remove some of the hundreds of checkpoints that restrict travel in the West Bank.

Blair is developing a plan that would spell out practical steps that Israeli, Palestinian and business leaders would gradually take to try to boost peace prospects, officials said.

''Abbas and the Palestinian side asked Blair to really put pressure on Israel to remove the checkpoints because how can you improve the Palestinian economy if you cannot move goods from one area to another,'' Abbas aide Saeb Erekat told Reuters.

The president also asked Blair to press Israel to stop carrying out arrest raids in the occupied West Bank, where Abbas's secular Fatah faction holds sway. Hamas Islamists seized the Gaza Strip in June.

Abbas said Blair's ''action plan'' should spell out steps to bolster the Palestinian economy.

Israel is expected to be asked under the plan to ease travel restrictions in the occupied West Bank, officials involved in the talks said.

Steps for the Palestinian side would focus initially on improving Abbas's security hold on the West Bank, a key Israeli precondition for removing checkpoints, the officials said.

Israeli government officials said Prime Minister Ehud Olmert does not want Blair's action plan to set specific dates for implementation. Doing so would raise expectations that may not be achievable due to security developments, one official said.

Blair, who started a visit to Israel and the West Bank on Tuesday, made no public comments after his meeting with Abbas in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

A Blair spokesman had no immediate comment.

The Quartet of West Asia mediators gave Blair a limited mandate mainly focused on economic development and building governing institutions in the occupied West Bank.

But Abbas's aides hope the former British prime minister will go further and use his influence to get Olmert to enter serious negotiations for a Palestinian state ahead of a US-sponsored conference in November.

REUTERS PDT VC2145