NEW DELHI, Aug 18 — The Palestine leader, Mr Yasser Arafat, arrived here late tonight from Bangladesh and held consultations with the Prime Minister, Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee, seeking support for declaring Palestine an independent state.

Mr Vajpayee held a dinner in honour of the visiting dignitary, who is on a global tour to convince the international leadership and the major powers that the Palestinians had waited long for a homeland. He wanted pressure to be put on Israel not to drag its feet any more regarding the rights of the Palestinians for a homeland.

New Delhi has consistently supported the Arab cause and the right of the Palestinians.

Mr Arafat, whose brief sojourn to New Delhi was kept a closely guarded secret till a few hours before his special aircraft landed at the IGI international airport, drove to the official Race Course Road residence of Mr Vajpayee for wide-ranging discussions.

Mr Vajpayee and Mr Arafat discussed the Washington-brokered peace talks between Palestine and Israel on a one-to-one basis initially before being joined by their key aides. Mr Vajpayee was assisted by External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh, Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister Brajesh Mishra and other senior officials.

Expressing gratefulness to New Delhi for its unambiguous stand on the Palestinian issue, Mr Arafat expressed frustration with postponing the declaration of statehood for Palestine on one pretext or another since May last year. The Palestinian leader pointed out that 16 months had already elapsed and now they were being asked to further delay the date for declaring the statehood from September 13 to November 15.

With India’s relations with Israel having reached a high point, Mr Arafat is reported to have urged Mr Vajpayee to impress upon the Israeli leadership not to renege on its pledges.

Mr Arafat failed to receive the runaway support that he expected from the major powers for declaring statehood on the plea that it was advisable to resolve the remaining contentious issues like Jerusalem for the overall good of the Palestinian people. Both Palestine and Israel want Jerusalem as their capital.

The Palestinian chief who visited Japan earlier this week was advised by Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori that a unilateral declaration of independence at this juncture would not be a wise policy. Mori counselled for more patience till the negotiations with Israel bear fruit. While in Jakarta, Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid offered his country’s good offices in giving an added push to the Palestine-Israel peace talks.

Mr Arafat, who is travelling the globe for speeding up Palestinian statehood has found little enthusiasm among the interlocutors for meeting the September 13 deadline. He has already visited more than 25 countries including China, the Russian Federation, the western powers and the Arab world.

Meanwhile, the meeting of Islamic countries scheduled to be held in Teheran, next week over the future of Jerusalem has been postponed.