Sharon rejects Blair conference request
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon today rejected a written request by Tony Blair to lift a ban on Palestinian officials attending a Middle East conference in London next week.
The British ambassador to Israel, Sherard Cowper-Coles, delivered the British Prime Minister’s letter to Sharon at his office today said Raanan Gissin, a Sharon adviser.
In the letter, Blair asked Sharon to allow the Palestinians to attend the two-day conference during which Palestinian reforms and ways of ending nearly 28 months of Israeli-Palestinian fighting are to be discussed.
Palestinian reform is a key demand by the United States and Israel.
Also invited to the conference, which starts on Tuesday, are representatives of the European Union, the United States, Russia and the United Nations.
Israel imposed a travel ban on the Palestinian delegation in response to a double suicide bombing last week in Tel Aviv in which 22 bystanders were killed.
Members of a militia linked to Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement claimed responsibility for the attack.
