Britain rebuffs Sharon on severing ties with Arafat

Britain rebuffed visiting Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's appeal yesterday to cut ties with Yasser Arafat, who Israel has accused of undermining reformist Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas.

"(Foreign Secretary Jack Straw) made it clear that the British position, which is also that of the European Union, is that we would continue to have dealings with Arafat," a British official said after Mr Straw held talks with Mr Sharon.

Mr Sharon was scheduled to hold talks with British Prime Minister Tony Blair later in the day on ways to shore up an internationally backed Middle East peace "road map".

Britain has long argued it cannot ignore the democratically elected Palestinian president although Israel and the United States shun him, accusing him of fomenting violence in a nearly three-year-old uprising for independence.

President Arafat denies the allegations. "Any contact with Arafat weakens Abbas," said a senior Israeli official who accompanied Mr Sharon to London.

Mr Blair was expected to press Mr Sharon on issues such as a freeze, mandated by the peace plan, on the expansion of Jewish settlements on occupied land Palestinians want for a state and a release of Palestinian prisoners.

Mr Sharon is visiting Britain and Norway this week to highlight new peacemaking credentials after he and Abbas affirmed the road map at a June 4 summit in Jordan attended by US President George W. Bush.

Israeli officials have hailed the trip as a sign European opposition to Mr Sharon has softened in the wake of the peace plan sponsored by the United States, the European Union, the United Nations and Russia, and its vision of a Palestinian state by 2005.

Mr Blair's invitation to Mr Sharon is viewed in Israel as particularly significant because it believes his close ties with President Bush make him the most influential leader in the European Union.

It is also conventional wisdom in Israel that it was Mr Blair who twisted President Bush's arm to publish the peace plan in a bid to display even-handedness towards an Arab world angered by the US-led war in Iraq.

"We know the huge amount of work you have been doing to help, in very great difficulties, the peace process between the Israelis and Palestinians and we would like to commend you for that," Mr Straw said to Mr Sharon at the start of their meeting.