Middle East Quartet to meet in Lisbon next week

By Axel Bugge

LISBON (Reuters) - The Quartet of Middle East mediators will meet in Lisbon on July 19 at what could be former Prime Minister Tony Blair's first meeting as the group's envoy, a Portuguese Foreign Ministry source said on Friday.

The Quartet comprises the United States, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will be in Portugal on that day and is expected to attend.

Blair, appointed by the Quartet on June 27 -- the day he left office after 10 years in power -- might attend, according to diplomatic sources.

"I still don't know but I think yes (that Blair is coming)," the Foreign Ministry source said, adding that Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov might also attend.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said he could not confirm there would be a Quartet meeting in Lisbon next week.

"I have not heard that all of the final arrangements and final agreements have been made for one," he told Reuters.

An EU official in Brussels said the meeting in Lisbon was not likely to involve Arab states such as Saudi Arabia, as talks between Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas were progressing.

"The Olmert-Abbas track is going well, the idea is to let that run and not disturb that," the official said.