Blair in Israel for peace push

Tony Blair

TEL AVIV - Prime Minister Tony Blair has landed in Israel for talks with Israeli and Palestinian leaders on reviving the Middle East peace process following the death of Yasser Arafat.

Blair, who wants to host a Middle East conference in London in February, arrived in Tel Aviv after paying a surprise visit to Iraq in a bid to boost prospects for Iraqi elections next month.

He was due on Wednesday to meet Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in Jerusalem and hold talks in the West Bank city of Ramallah with Palestine leaders Mahmoud Abbas -- frontrunner in a January 9 election to choose Arafat's successor -- and Ahmed Qurie.

Blair's 24-hour visit will be the highest-level diplomatic mission to the Palestinian territories since Arafat died of an undisclosed illness in a military hospital near Paris on November 11.

He will confer with Palestinian leaders in the half-demolished Muqata compound where the Israeli army confined Arafat in his final years before he died at age 75 in November.

Israel and the United States viewed Arafat as an obstacle to peace, accusing him of fomenting violence in a Palestinian uprising that began in 2000. Arafat always denied the allegation.

Blair has made reviving Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts a foreign policy priority for London while promising to strive to ensure that US President George W. Bush -- the only outsider with real influence -- remains engaged.

"Mr Blair will discuss with Palestinian leaders Mahmoud Abbas, Ahmed Qurie and other officials the whole situation and the international conference which will take place in London," Palestinian Authority spokesman Nabil Abu Rdainah told Reuters.

ISRAEL COOL TO CONFERENCE

The proposed conference received a lukewarm response in Israel, which said it backed the forum's stated aim to support Palestinian reforms but would not attend.

"Its main purpose would be to work out how the international community can better support as it were the 'day after'," a senior British official said, referring to Israel's planned withdrawal from the occupied Gaza Strip by the end of 2005.

"I see a very active role for Britain in that," he said.

Sharon has long resisted the idea of international Middle East conferences, fearing they would be a forum for putting pressure on the Jewish state to make what he sees as dangerous concessions on security.

During his visit, Blair is likely to urge Sharon to smooth the Palestinian ballot as promised by pulling troops from Palestinian cities, and press the two sides to coordinate the Gaza pullout as a step towards peace talks.

Blair has been a vocal supporter of a Middle East peace "road map" sponsored by the United States, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations that charts reciprocal steps towards creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel.

The peace plan, adopted last year, has been stalled by constant violence.

Foreign Secretary Jack Straw paid a visit for talks with Abbas and Israeli officials on November 25, also laying a wreath at Arafat's grave site at the Muqata.

- REUTERS