Palestinian President Yasser Arafat accepted a British invitation on Monday to send a delegation to London next month and called for international mediators to finalize a Middle East peace plan. Violence continued unabated in the Gaza Strip against the backdrop of the apparent attempt by British Prime Minister Tony Blair to move the Israeli-Palestinian conflict higher on a world agenda dominated by possible U.S. war on Iraq.

"I am inviting leading Palestinians to come to Britain in January to a conference along with members of the Quartet and other countries from the region," Blair told the British parliament.

A "Quartet" of Middle East mediators -- the United States, European Union, United Nations and Russia -- has been putting together an Israeli-Palestinian peace plan, or "road map" to try to end more than two years of bloodshed.

Their efforts have been overshadowed by Israel's Jan. 28 election campaign and war clouds in the Gulf.

"(The conference) will discuss progress on reform and look at how the international community can help," said Blair, who sent a British diplomat to deliver the invitation to Arafat at the Palestinian leader's battered West Bank headquarters.

NO URGENCY

But in Washington, Israeli and U.S. officials on Monday talked about how the "road map" will dominate a meeting of mediators in Washington on Friday but neither side indicated any urgency in completing it.

Israel has asked the United States to go slow on the plan until the Israeli elections in late January, and Washington has discouraged expectations that the Quartet meeting this week will release a definitive document.

It came up again at talks on Monday between Secretary of State Colin Powell and Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz, a hard-liner who has advocated expelling Palestinian President Yasser Arafat from the Palestinian territories.

Arafat, shunned by the President Bush over his alleged links to attacks on Israelis in a more than two-year-old uprising for statehood, was not expected to attend. Arafat has denied encouraging violence.

Palestinian leaders say Palestinian elections called for January as a result of international and domestic pressure for reform may be delayed because of Israel's tight hold on cities reoccupied in response to attacks against Israelis.
Saeb Erekat, a Palestinian cabinet minister and peace negotiatator, told Reuters that Arafat "appreciated (Blair's) letter and accepted the invitation" to send a Palestinian delegation to London.
ARAFAT SENDS OWN LETTER
Erekat said Arafat sent his own letter to members of the Quartet to urge them to "declare the road map," finalizing a document that envisages the establishment of a Palestinian state by 2005.
In his remarks to parliament, Blair acknowledged that in the short-term, any progress toward peace would be limited by the Israeli election next month which opinion polls show Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's right-wing Likud party will win.
FIRST VISIT TO BRITAIN BY A SYRIAN LEADER

Also in Britain, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad had talks Monday with Prime Minister Tony Blair during the first official visit to Britain by a Syrian leader.

The Syrian leader also held talks Monday with Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, and is to meet Queen Elizabeth II on Tuesday.

Assad's visit to London has provoked controversy, with British Jews upset by the presence in their country of an Arab leader who stands accused of letting Palestinian extremists maintain offices in Damascus.

Speaking in Arabic with English translation, Assad told a joint press conference with Mr. Blair that "we don't have in Syria organizations supporting terrorism," but rather "press officers" which enable Palestinians to air their views.

"Palestinians have a right to have someone to express their opinion," he said.

Prior to Monday's talks at Downing Street, British officials made clear the prime minister's determination to raise the question of groups such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad which have offices in Syria.

OCCUPATION TROOPS KILL FOUR PALESTINIANS

The Israeli occupation army meanwhile shot dead two armed Palestinian resistance activists from the resistance group Hamas at dawn Monday as they tried to enter the Jewish state from the north of the Gaza Strip, Palestinian and Israeli security officials said.

Late Monday, occupation troops shot dead an armed Palestinian near the southern Gaza town of Rafah, the occupation army said, adding the Palestinian rushed up to within 10 metres (yards) of a military post before being shot down.

At around the same time near the internationally illegal Jewish settlement of Neve Delakim, part of the internationally illegal Gush Katif settlement bloc in the south of the Strip, a Palestinian man was shot and killed by Israeli occupaion forces.

The Nasser hospital in the nearby Palestinian town of Khan Yunis, which faces the well-guarded settlement bloc from a distance of just a few hundred yards (metres), identified the slain man as Hassan Shalulah, 22, saying he was a farmer.

Palestinians said the man was tending to songbirds in his backyard.

In the northern West Bank, 10 Palestinian youths were wounded, three of them critically, when they threw stones at Israeli tanks in the reoccupied city of Nablus, with Israeli forces responding with machine-gun fire.

ISRAELI UNDERCOVER AGENTS ABDUCT A TOP PALESTINIAN RESISTANCE LEADER

In the West Bank city of Jenin, Palestinian witnesses said undercover Israeli soldiers grabbed a top resistance leader affiliated with the armed wing of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction while he was in a record shop.

The soldiers, dressed as Palestinians, first asked the shop keeper for a cassette of popular Egyptian music, then pulled out guns and dragged Mohammed el-Masri, leader of the city's Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, into their car and drove off, witnesses said.

The army had no immediate comment on the incident

PHOTO CAPTION

British Prime Minister Tony Blair (news - web sites), left, speaks with Syrian President Bashar Assad at a joint news conference at 10 Downing St, London, Monday, Dec.16 2002. (AP Photo/Dave Caulkin, POOL)
- Dec 16 12:22 PM