RAMALLAH, Dec 22: British Prime Minister Tony Blair nodded briefly towards Yasser Arafat's tomb on Wednesday in what Palestinian officials said was a compromise gesture agreed at the last minute.

The question of how to behave was fraught with diplomatic dangers for Mr Blair, trying to help revive Middle East peace efforts after Mr Arafat's death. Mr Blair inspected a Palestinian honour guard with Arafat's likely successor, Mahmoud Abbas, before stopping for a moment in front of the glass-walled mausoleum built after Arafat's burial in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

Mr Blair nodded and there was a moment's silence. The Palestinians would ideally have liked Mr Blair to lay a wreath at the grave, as British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw did last month, but they said Mr Blair's delegation had ruled this out and agreed to the pause before the tomb instead.

If there had been no gesture, it would have offended Palestinians and discredited their leaders, a Palestinian official said. "We did what we thought was appropriate. It wasn't a big issue," said a member of Mr Blair's entourage. -Reuters