The Middle East Quartet's mediators restated their support on Thursday for an independent Palestinian state and voiced concerns over the humanitarian conditions in Gaza.

"A Palestinian state is viable not only in terms of territories, but also in terms of institutions and its capacity to manage them," former British prime minister Tony Blair told a press conference after a Quartet meeting held in Lisbon, the first since he took the post as its envoy.

"There will be no solution that does not accept the reality that Israel has to be confident of its own security, and the other reality is that the Palestinians are not going to go away (as) they want their own state and we have to help them prepare for that," Blair said.

The meeting, which gathered US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, came after US President George W. Bush on Monday announced his new Middle East initiative.

According to the plan, Rice will chair a conference in the autumn that would include the Israelis, the Palestinians and their Arab neighbors in an effort to reach a two-date solution.

Ban hailed the meeting, saying it "revitalized the commitment to restarting negotiations to form an independent Palestinian state."

He stressed the importance to develop Palestine's economy and to establish the democratic institutions in the Palestinian territories: the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

"Alongside Blair we will do all we can in the Peace Conference planned for this autumn," Ban said.

Meanwhile, Solana pledged that the Quartet will "continue helping the Palestinian people that are in Gaza."

"The Quartet expressed its deep concern over the humanitarian conditions in Gaza and agreed on the importance of continued emergency and humanitarian assistance," said a Quartet statement read by Ban.

(Xinhua News Agency July 20, 2007)