http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article6833189.ece

Outside the offices of Wataniya Mobile in Ramallah, an expansive car park is almost empty. It is symptomatic of problems for a project once seen as pivotal to Tony Blair’s hopes of creating a viable Palestinian economy.

Wataniya was supposed to provide a reliable mobile phone network on the West Bank and create revenue and employment for the Palestinians. But delays threaten to destroy the project and leave the Palestinian economy hundreds of millions of dollars in debt.

During his last visit to the region in early August, Mr Blair warned that Israeli intransigence risked undermining the project. “I hope that we can get this moved satisfactorily in the next few weeks,” he said. “But again it has been very frustrating because we have an agreement, we secured the agreement. All we need is the frequency released.” More than $700 million (£419 million) has been invested in the project, but Mr Blair has been unable to get Israel to unblock the network.

Palestinian officials say that the Israelis reneged on promises to provide adequate frequencies to Wataniya.

Israel says that Wataniya has enough frequencies to operate and that “security concerns” have prevented it from releasing more. The company set a deadline of tomorrow for the completion of the deal.

“Nobody has been able to make this project move, and if it fails it will have dire consequences,” said Sulaiman Zuhairi, the Palestinian Minister of Telecommunications.