Blair prepares for busy week of diplomacy

Tony Blair was gearing up today for another week of hectic diplomacy in an efforts to maintain the international consensus for the military action against Afghanistan.

Mr Blair will fly to Washington by Concorde on Wednesday to brief US President George Bush on the results of his tour last week of the Middle East and his talks with European leaders at Downing Street last night.

Mr Blair will be back in London by Thursday for a meeting with King Abdullah of Jordan.

Later the same day Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf will visit Downing Street.

Spanish prime minister Jose Maria Aznar, who was among the European leaders who took part in last night’s talks at No 10, will be back in London on Friday morning.

Today Mr Blair’s official spokesman said the allies believed that Saudi dissident Osama bin Laden is losing the propaganda struggle.

The latest video recording released by the prime suspect in the September 11 attacks had not been well received in the Arab world, the spokesman argued.

The British Prime Minister’s official spokesman said: ‘‘I think there is a growing sense of bin Laden’s isolation.

‘‘The general secretary of the Arab League (Amr Mussa) responded very quickly to the video saying that bin Laden did not speak for the Arab and Muslim world, and generally there has been a negative reaction to that, as might be obvious from the fact that bin Laden was attacking the UN (United Nations), the very organisation which is feeding Afghani refugees, many of whom are suffering as a direct result of Taliban policy.

‘‘There is also a recognition that the US bombing campaign is being targeted on frontline troops, and that the diplomatic offensive is also gathering momentum with renewed emphasis on finding a broad-based successor government to the Taliban, and in pushing forward the Middle East peace process.

‘‘Last night’s meeting here was not only popular with European leaders, but also highly successful in helping the process of thinking through both those elements of the campaign.’’

Mr Blair’s mini-summit last night saw French President Jacques Chirac and PM Lionel Jospin, Germany’s Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and Prime Ministers Aznar of Spain, Wim Kok of Holland, Silvio Berlusconi of Italy and Guy Verhofstadt of Belgium - who is also the current holder of the EU presidency - gather at Number 10.

Downing Street said the meeting enabled the main European military contributors to the coalition to ‘‘swap notes’’. It broke up after two hours of what a Number 10 spokesman described as ‘‘very useful’’ discussions.

There was said to have been ‘‘absolute solidarity’’ around the combined military, diplomatic and humanitarian strategy being pursued by the coalition and the need to revive the Middle East peace process.

Meanwhile, Washington has confirmed that more US ground troops have been deployed in Afghanistan.

The chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Richard Myers, said they had managed to get a ‘‘couple more’’ teams into the country to help the rebel Northern Alliance and guide US bombing raids.

US officials rejected Pakistan’s call to stop the strikes on Afghanistan during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

Mr Myers said the US-led coalition was prepared to keep on supplying the alliance fighters throughout the Afghan winter, as the rebel fighters claimed to have mounted a major offensive on the key strategic stronghold of Mazar-e-Sharif.