RAMALLAH, Dec 23: Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qorei attacked British Prime Minister Tony Blair's planned London meeting on Palestinian reform on Thursday, saying what was really needed was a peace conference.

Mr Qorei would not be in a position to decide whether Palestinians attend the meeting proposed by Mr Blair, but the comments were a clear sign of division within the new Palestinian leadership after Yasser Arafat's death.

Palestine Liberation Organization leader Mahmoud Abbas, frontrunner to succeed Mr Arafat, on Wednesday welcomed Mr Blair's proposal to host a conference on Palestinian reform next year.

Mr Qorei said he rejected Mr Blair's suggestion that Palestinians needed reform before there could be progress on the peace process. "We reject these remarks. They are unacceptable and we are capable and have the means and expertise for peace and negotiations," Mr Qorei told reporters in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

"It is the Israeli side that requires rehabilitation for peace not us ... We are in need of a peace conference and not a meeting." Mr Blair gave more details of his planned London conference during a visit to the Middle East on Wednesday, saying that it would focus on Palestinian political, economic and security reform. Israel has no plans to attend.

Diplomats said Mr Blair's conference idea was a scaled down version of what had originally been grander plans for a meeting to help revive Middle East peace efforts.

HAMAS STANCE: The radical Islamic movement Hamas fiercely criticized British Prime Minister Tony Blair's plan to hold a Middle East conference in London and urged the Palestinian Authority not to participate.

Ismail Haniya, one of the movement's senior figures in the Gaza Strip, said the aim of the conference was "to intensify the pressure on the Palestinian Authority to undertake structural reforms for the benefit of Israel."

Haniya added in a statement that the conference was designed to "make it appear that the Palestinian people and the resistance, and not the occupation and oppression, is the origin of the problem in the region."

PLO chairman Mahmud Abbas welcomed the prospect of the London conference, which was unveiled by Blair on a visit to Israel and the West Bank on Wednesday. -Reuters/AFP