(AFP) Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad is to hold an unprecedented meeting with opposition legislators to discuss a request by his jailed former deputy Anwar Ibrahim for overseas surgery, an opposition official said today.

The official, who declined to be identified, said the meeting tomorrow - the first of its kind between the premier and the opposition alliance - would be held at the administrative capital of Putrajaya at 9am.

He said the premier would meet Fadzil Noor, president of the Parti Islam SeMalaysia; Abdul Rahman Yusuf, a legislator from the National Justice Party headed by Anwar's wife; and Tan Seng Giaw, a legislator from the Democratic Action Party.

"It is the first time such a meeting will have taken place," said the official, confirming a report about the meeting.

He said Mahathir had not requested confidentiality about the planned meeting. "But we (opposition) thought it better if it took place without the glare of publicity."

Opposition leaders would press for Anwar to be allowed his preferred type of spinal surgery in an overseas clinic - an option the government has ruled out.

"I suppose it (the meeting) is a positive development," the official added. Mahathir's press spokesmen could not be reached for comment.

The meeting is the latest in a number of apparently conciliatory moves by the government on Anwar's case.

Anwar is serving a 15-year jail term for abuse of power and sodomy.

Political challenge

He says he was framed to avert a political challenge to Mahathir, who denies interfering in the judicial process.

Earlier this month state prosecutors, without explanation, dropped five outstanding charges against Anwar.

Yesterday, members of the human rights commission were given permission to visit Anwar in his prison cell to investigate whether he should be allowed to have the spinal surgery overseas.

Anwar, who has been in custody since September 1998, was last November transferred to a state-run hospital with a slipped disc.

He was moved back to prison on May 10 after he rejected a government offer of spinal surgery at the hospital.

Anwar insists he has a right to a "less risky" endoscopic spinal operation in a specialist clinic in Munich.

The government says Anwar's preferred foreign endoscopic specialist can conduct surgery in Malaysia if desired and import equipment. The specialist has said he cannot operate here.

The government has been at pains in recent months to deny any neglect of its best known prisoner.

Last month Health Minister Chua Jui Meng told diplomats that Anwar "received the best, the most extensive, the most unprecedented treatment for a slipped disc" in Malaysian medical history.