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Blair not at odds with colleague

Hasan Suroor

LONDON: British Prime Minister Tony Blair was on Thursday forced to deny that he and his Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett were at "odds'' over his pro-U.S. stance on the Israeli-Lebanese crisis. But under sustained grilling at a press conference in Downing Street, admitted that there was "anxiety'' in the Cabinet, the Labour Party and the Government over the issue.

In an implicit acknowledgement that the Foreign Office and Downing Street were not fully on the same wavelength, Mr. Blair said he was not saying there were people in the Foreign Office who "don't disagree'' with his policy. But he insisted that he and Ms. Beckett were working as "one'' to resolve the crisis and said that the idea that they were at loggerheads was "nonsense.''

Mr. Blair's remarks came amid reports of a "mutiny'' in his Cabinet over his refusal to denounce Israel for its "disproportionate'' military response to Hizbollah's provocation.

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