New bid to heal Arafat-Abbas rift as Sharon meets Blair

Ahmed Qorei, the speaker of the Palestinian legislative council (parliament), was due to hold separate meetings here with the two political heavyweights after similar talks Sunday failed to produce a breakthrough, a senior Palestinian official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

"Qorei will today try to resolve the crisis between both leaders," said the source.

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"There is clearly a conflict of power," he added.

Qorei was part of a three-man team which tried unsuccessfully Sunday to end the rift which has been sparked by divisions over Abbas' handling of peace talks with the Israelis.

Sharon has accused Arafat of trying to undermine Abbas, who offered to resign last week from the central committee of Arafat's Fatah movement.

Abbas has been criticized in the central committee for being too soft towards Israel, with many infuriated by Sharon's refusal to countenance the release of more than 350 of some 6,000 Palestinian prisoners in its jails.

Arafat invited Abbas to attend a dinner offered in honor of visiting Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov on Sunday night but sources said that Abbas "refused, because their conflict has not been resolved."

Sharon was to hold talks in London later Monday with Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair and Foreign Secretary Jack Straw in which he is expected to hammer home his drive to persuade foreign governments to boycott Arafat.

But a senior British official told AFP that London was unlikely to break off all contact with the veteran Palestinian leader.

"We are not maintaining a full-on relationship with Yasser Arafat. It is very much a tactical issue," he said, without giving further details. "We're playing it by ear."

"We're always asking ourselves what is most likely to promote real progress on the ground and what is most likely to work against that," he said. "But it is not a black-and-white issue."

Sharon said in interviews ahead of his departure that governments which maintained contacts with Arafat were effectively undermining efforts to resolve the decades-long conflict between the two sides.

"I think there has to be a common approach to remove Arafat from all positions," Sharon told the Norwegian daily Aftenposten in an interview published Sunday.