Britain wins US support for Mideast talks

Britain has won US agreement for an international peace conference on the Middle East in London early next year, the Daily Telegraph reported yesterday, but an Israeli political source said the Jewish state opposed the idea.

The newspaper, quoting unidentified senior diplomatic sources, said Prime Minister Tony Blair would discuss details with Israeli and Palestinian leaders during a visit to the Middle East this month.

Mr Blair has said resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a foreign policy priority, linking it to fighting terrorism. British officials were not immediately available for comment on the Telegraph report but Foreign Secretary Jack Straw signalled in an interview yesterday that a conference was possible.

The conference, planned for late January or early February, was likely to be attended by foreign ministers but it was not yet clear that Israel would send a delegation at that level, the Telegraph said.

A US official told Reuters he was unaware of any change in Washington's view that such a meeting should be held only after significant progress had been made on a US-sponsored "road map" to peace. The map has been stalled by persistent violence.

An Israeli political source said Israel had received no word of US backing for such a conference and continued to oppose holding one. "What would a conference be for? Only to put pressure on Israel," the source said. "For now, it's wishful thinking by the British."

The newspaper said the conference would probably be announced only after a January 9 Palestinian ballot to choose a president to succeed Yasser Arafat and would depend on the election of moderate former prime minister Mahmoud Abbas.

It quoted an unidentified Israeli source as saying "there will be no conference" if Palestinians elected Marwan Barghouthi, who is serving five life sentences in an Israeli jail for ordering militant attacks that killed Israelis.

The newspaper quoted its sources as saying preparations for the conference now dominated US-British foreign policy talks and were at the heart of attempts to heal rifts between Washington and some European nations over Iraq.

"There may be a London conference," Britain's Straw told the Independent newspaper. Referring to previous Middle East conferences, he said: "This would be a more discreet arrangement to do with the day after in Gaza."

But the Israeli source told Reuters that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was unlikely to consider any kind of international peace conference until after he carried out his plan to remove all Jewish settlements in Gaza by the end of next year.

Mr Blair discussed a possible conference with US President George W. Bush last month but apparently received no US commitment. Both men said Mr Arafat's death last month offered a chance to advance the long-stalled Middle East peace process.

Mr Bush has vowed to use the next four years of his second term to achieve a peace deal that would include a Palestinian state.