WASHINGTON – As Palestinian Arab officials met yesterday to advance their plans to elect in January a replacement for their dead leader Yasser Arafat, Prime Minister Blair acknowledged there was a long process ahead before a resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict could be brokered, and said the sending of a peace envoy by President Bush would be premature.

Speaking on American TV, Mr. Blair said the single most important blow that could be delivered to Middle East terrorism would be the setting up of a viable and democratic Palestinian state, but he conceded that a peace summit is a long way down the road and he wouldn’t be drawn on a date for such a conference.

“It is going to be difficult, and there is a lot of negotiation to do, but what is the alternative?” he remarked.

He said successful democratic elections need to take place, economic development has to take hold, and there must be a security infrastructure in the Gaza and the West Bank “so that we can bear down on the terrorism” that has disrupted past efforts to establish peace.

Asked whether Mr. Bush should send a peace envoy to the Middle East, Mr. Blair said it would be premature. Like Mr. Bush at their joint press conference, he put heavy emphasis on Palestinian Arabs cracking down on terrorism.

The Anglo-American insistence on the building of democratic institutions in the Palestinian territories before settlement talks can take place is in many ways a testimony to the influence on British and American thinking of the former Soviet dissident and Israeli politician Natan Sharansky, who met on Thursday with Mr. Bush before the president met with Mr. Blair.

Mr. Sharansky has been a key interlocutor with the White House and has developed a close friendship with Vice President Cheney. In 2002, during Israel’s Operation Defensive Shield, when Mr. Sharansky was an Israeli deputy prime minister, he met with the national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, to discuss plans to build democratic institutions in the Palestinian territories.

A source familiar with the conversation between Mr. Sharansky and Mr. Bush said the president brought to the meeting a copy of the Israeli’s book “The Case for Democracy,” which argues that democratic institutions have to precede peace talks and that it is better to deal with a democracy you disagree with than a dictatorship.

According to Richard Perle, a former Bush administration foreign-policy adviser, everything the president said at the Friday news conference is “not only consistent with it [but] seems to reflect Sharansky’s view.”

In keeping with Mr. Sharansky’s ideas, in an interview aired yesterday Secretary of State Powell said America wants the post-Arafat Palestinian Arab leadership to crack down on terrorism. “What we’re looking for is for the new Palestinian leadership to clamp down on terrorism, speak out against terrorism, and to use their security forces to go after those who commit acts of terror,” Mr. Powell told a CNBC cable news program.

Mr. Powell said he and Mr. Bush were in touch with Prime Minister Qurei and the newly appointed chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization, Mahmoud Abbas, previously a prime minister. “We know these gentlemen well, and I hope to be able to see them in the very near future to discuss what their plans are and how to move forward,” he said. Mr. Powell is reportedly considering a trip to the Middle East ahead of the January elections.

Yesterday, Prime Minister Sharon told ministers at a weekly Cabinet meeting that he didn’t agree with his foreign minister’s position, noting that east Jerusalem Palestinian Arabs voted in the 1996 Palestinian elections, according to government officials. In other conciliatory steps, Mr. Sharon has eased many checkpoints and roadblocks throughout the West Bank. American officials say that move is designed as a goodwill-gesture.

The White House and Mr. Sharon’s office have been discussing ways to facilitate the elections and to bolster Palestinian Arab moderates, but other disputes are likely to surface, and unless they are resolved, they could harden rapidly.

Among the issues being discussed is the candidacy of Marwan Barghouti, who is in jail in Israel and who announced through friends his plan to run in the presidential election. Mr. Barghouti, who supports violence but says he wants peace with Israel, is considered by many to have a chance to beat Arafat’s old guard. He may also prove to be a better candidate to fend off an election challenge from the terror group Hamas, which may also provide a candidate.

But the Israeli Cabinet is loath to release Mr. Barghouti, who is serving life terms for his role in the killings of four Israelis and a Greek monk. But his prominence could put pressure on Israel to free him.