A Muslim woman wearing a veil known as a Niqab protests outside a constituency meeting with Britain's Leader of the House of Commons Jack Straw, in Blackburn, northern England, on Saturday. Straw is to meet constituents for the first time this weekend since claiming that the facial veils of women can make community relations more difficult. - Reuters

LONDON (AP):

Prime Minister Tony Blair said yesterday that Britain needed a debate about the position of Muslims, but that the faith also needed to decide how it comes to terms with modernity.

At his monthly news conference, Blair said he supported a local school authority's decision to bar a Muslim woman from working as a teacher while wearing a veil.

He said, however, that should be just one issue in a broader debate about "the relationship between our society and how the Muslim community integrates with our society. There's a second issues which is about Islam itself, and how Islam comes to terms with and is com-fortable with the modern world," Blair said.

Similar de-bates, he said, were happening around Europe and in the Mus-lim world.

Former For-eign Secretary Jack Straw caused controversy re-cently when he revealed that he requested that veiled women reveal their faces when they come to meet him at his constituency office.

"(The veil) is a mark of separation, and that's why it makes other people from outside the community feel uncomfortable," Blair said. "Now no one wants to say that people don't have the right to do it, I mean that's to take it too far."

( L - R ) Blair, Straw