Palestinians accept Blair invite to talks

RAMALLAH - Palestinian President Yasser Arafat yesterday accepted a British invitation to send a delegation to London next month and called for international mediators to settle a Middle East peace plan.

Violence continued unabated in the Gaza Strip against the backdrop of the apparent attempt by British Prime Minister Tony Blair to move the Israeli-Palestinian conflict higher on a world agenda dominated by possible United States war on Iraq.

Israeli forces killed two Hamas militants near the northern border with Israel, a man the Army said was apparently carrying an explosives belt in southern Gaza and a Palestinian who witnesses described as tending to songbirds in his backyard.

"I am inviting leading Palestinians to come to Britain in January to a conference along with members of the Quartet and other countries from the region," Blair told the British Parliament.

A "Quartet" of Middle East mediators - the United States, European Union, United Nations and Russia - has been putting together an Israeli-Palestinian peace plan, or "road map" to try to end more than two years of bloodshed.

Their efforts have been overshadowed by Israel's January 28 election campaign and war clouds in the Gulf.

"The conference will discuss progress on reform and look at how the international community can help," said Blair, who sent a British diplomat to deliver the invitation to Arafat at the Palestinian leader's battered West Bank headquarters.

But in Washington, Israeli and US officials yesterday talked about how the "road map" would dominate a meeting of mediators in Washington on Saturday but neither side indicated any urgency in completing it.

Israel has asked the US to go slow on the plan until the elections, and Washington has discouraged expectations that this week's Quartet meeting will release a definitive document.

It came up again at talks yesterday between US Secretary of State Colin Powell and Israeli Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz, a hard-liner who has advocated expelling Arafat from the Palestinian territories.

Arafat, shunned by US President George W. Bush over his alleged links to attacks on Israelis, was not expected to attend.

Saeb Erekat, a Palestinian Cabinet minister and peace negotiator, said Arafat "appreciated [Blair's] letter and accepted the invitation" to send a delegation to London.

Erekat said Arafat sent his own letter to members of the Quartet to urge them to "declare the road map", completing a document that envisages the establishment of a Palestinian state by 2005.

In his remarks to Parliament, Blair acknowledged that any progress towards peace would be limited by the Israeli election, which opinion polls show Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's Likud party will win.

Sharon has said that while he accepts the "road map" in principle, its implementation would depend on cessation of what he called Palestinian "terror, violence and incitement."

- REUTERS

Herald feature: The Middle East