Palestinians need institutions for a state, Tony Blair says

"There is momentum back in this process," he told a news conference.  That doesn't mean to say that we're foolishly optimistic after all the difficulties of the past. But things are moving again.

He said the meeting in November, called by US" President George W. Bush, would invigorate political negotiations between Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert but not solve all problems at once.

Secondly, Blair said there would be publication of the Palestinian national agenda for creating institutions for a Palestinian state.

A state without proper functioning institutions is not a state,"  Blair said. "A state's not just about territory; it's about capacity, capability, about governance."

Blair said for the third aspect, there must be  things happening on the ground that give hope to people, in Israel and on the Palestinian side -- that their lives are going to improve, that things are going to change, that people have the prospect of an improvement in their living standards. Elaborating on the three phases, Blair, in an interview with Al Jazeera television, said, "I think part of the mistake in the past is to say, 'OK, we deal with the politics here, we deal with the capabilities there.' It's not like that. These three things go together the whole time. It's not one first and then the other two," he said.  

"The November meeting, will in my view, be important in establishing whether there is the basis for us to move forward. This process a few months back was comatose," Blair said. "I think it is now awake and is still requiring intensive care but there is a real chance." Israelis, Blair said, worried about being rushed into final status negotiations before they are ready to do it and when there are so many security and other problems.