Sharon aims to rebuild fractured Anglo-Israeli links
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has landed in London in a bid to rebuild the Middle East peace effort and mend fractured diplomatic ties with Britain.
On Monday, Mr Sharon will meet Prime Minister Tony Blair at Downing Street and afterwards Foreign Secretary Jack Straw.
Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith and leaders of the Jewish community are also due to receive Mr Sharon.
It is Mr Sharon’s first to Britain in more than a year.
On the three-day visit, Mr Sharon is likely to raise the issue of President Yasser Arafat’s destablising role in the US-backed peace plan, which aims to establish a Palestinian state by 2005.
Also on the agenda is the issue of illegal settlement outposts in the West Bank and the security fence separating Israel from Palestinian areas.
Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas has called on Israel to permit the under-house arrest Mr Arafat to move freely but Mr Sharon wants him to be further sidelined and isolated.
Israel believes Mr Arafat is intent on undermining the peace building efforts of Mr Abbas.
He has urged European political leaders to sever ties with Mr Arafat.
Mr Sharon told a Norwegian daily: “Europe is maintaining contact with Yasser Arafat, meeting him, ringing him, and in this way is delaying a solution to the problems here in the Middle East.”
The Palestinian government was irked by this and said the call was “provocative.”
Anglo-Israeli ties were put to the test in January this year when Israel prevented Palestinian delegates from attending a conference in London backed by the Foreign Office because Israel had not been invited.
Mr Sharon was chagrined further when the PM declined to meet with former Israeli Foreign Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and instead chose to meet Labour leader Amram Mitzna ahead of elections in January.
