BRITAIN/MIDDLE EAST: Britain had to pressure a reluctant Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, to attend Tony Blair's Middle East conference in London tomorrow.
The Palestinian leadership had expressed fears that the meeting would serve Israel's interests by raising new hurdles to the revival of political negotiations.
Mr Abbas had planned to send his prime minister, Ahmed Korei, to show his scepticism about the conference, which will agree political and security reforms and mechanisms to revive the Palestinian economy.
Palestinian officials said that, after US and Israeli pressure forced Mr Blair to abandon his original plan for a full peace conference, the leadership feared that tomorrow's meeting would do little more than set out a fresh series of targets for the Palestinians before a return to the roadmap peace process.
The Palestinians say the conference will do almost nothing to press Israel to meet its roadmap obligations, or fulfil existing commitments to ease the strictures of occupation and end settlement expansion.
But about 10 days ago Mr Blair's office finally persuaded Mr Abbas to travel to London, in part because US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice, UN secretary general Kofi Annan, and several Arab delegations will attend the meeting.
"Abu Mazen [ Mr Abbas] was very reluctant to go to London," said Palestinian deputy foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah. Israel has refused to attend but it was consulted over the agenda and won changes to the wording of the final declaration.