British Prime Minister Tony Blair arrived in Egypt Saturday for Middle East peace talks, saying the next few days and weeks would be critical in determining whether Israel and the Palestinians can break their cycle of violence.

Blair held lunchtime talks with President Hosni Mubarak, a key player in ending spiraling violence between rival Palestinian factions that has seen kidnappings and gun battles in the West Bank and Gaza.

The British prime minister also planned to meet Mohammed Sayed Tantawi, the grand sheikh of al-Azhar Mosque, the Sunni Islamic world's most important institution.

	Advertisement

Blair said Saturday that the next few days and weeks will be crucial in determining whether Israel and the Palestinians can move toward peace.

Blair is expected to visit Israel and the Palestinian Authority during his tour of the Middle East, which coincides with escalating violence between rival Palestinian factions that have seen kidnappings and gun battles in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

"If we don't get a new sense of urgency and momentum to the situation, it will continue to go backwards," Blair said.

"The next few days and weeks are critical moments of decision for the whole process."

Blair spoke after talks with his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who Blair sees as a key ally in the quest for an Israeli-Palestinian peace settlement that could stabilize the whole region.

"The most important thing is that on the Palestinian side, one way or another, we have a fully functioning authority that the rest of us can deal with, support, and give financial assistance to ... That is what I hope we'll be able to agree on during the course of the visit," Blair said.

Blair is a strong backer of Turkey's bid to become the first majority-Muslim European Union member, and he sees the country as a key player in his bid to fashion an "arc of moderation" that can ease tensions in the Middle East.

That theme - drawing moderate Muslim nations closer to the West in a bid to defuse extremism and stabilize the region - was the keynote of Blair's trip, one of the last major diplomatic pushes of his premiership. He has said he will step down in 2007 after a decade in power.

"Turkey is placed right between the Middle East and Europe. If we needed no other reminder of the strategic importance of turkey to the European Union, it is what is happening in the Middle East today," Blair said.

At a summit in Brussels Thursday, EU leaders endorsed a decision to partially freeze Turkey's membership talks over its refusal to open ports and airports to EU member Cyprus, whose government Turkey does not recognize.

Blair sought to use the visit to reassure the Turkish government about its prospects for EU entry. He called on the EU to end isolation of the breakaway Turkish Cypriot state.

He said he would like to see the start of direct flights to the Turkish-Cypriot airport of Ercan and said that British officials were examining international aviation rules to determine whether direct flights were possible.

The prime minister was dogged on his trip by domestic woes, including questions about a fraud investigation and his role in a cash-for-honors scandal. However, he refused to answer questions on those issues on Saturday morning.