A statement issued by Qurei's office in Ramallah said the prime minister was acting at the request of the Palestine Liberation Organization, the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) and the Central Committee of Fatah, the largest organization within the PLO.

It said Qurei asked for "the medical report on the illness and reasons for the death" of Arafat at a military hospital in Paris on Nov. 11.

French doctors who treated Arafat have never made public a diagnosis, and Arafat's aides said he died of a brain hemorrhage,but they did not say what illness caused this, sparking vague speculation about what killed Arafat.

The lack of transparency has given rise to numerous theories,such as cancer, poisoning and even AIDS. Radical Palestinians continue to publicly declare that Arafat was poisoned by theIsraelis, a charged denied by Israel.

Arafat's private doctor Ashraf Kurdi suggested that the hospital should have conducted an autopsy to determine the cause of death,but this was rejected by Arafat's wife, Suha.Suha, who was with Arafat in Paris, used French law to preventthe hospital from saying anything specific about his illness or thecause of death.

France law on patient confidentiality regarding the cause ofArafat death remained in force, Foreign Ministry spokesman Herve Ladsous said Monday.

"Patient confidentiality is still in force and I have nothing to add," Ladsous said when asked about the illness that led to Arafat death.

Arafat, 75, died in a French military hospital on Thursday after being airlifted to Paris for urgent medical treatment from the West Bank city of Ramallah on Oct. 29.

On Saturday, Nasser al-Kidwa, the Palestinian envoy to the United Nations and Arafat's nephew, said that there is no evidence that Israel poisoned Yasser Arafat.