Abbas to Meet Obama on September 23
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is to meet U.S. President Barack Obama next week, ahead of the opening of the U.N. General Assembly, Palestinian sources said on Tuesday.
At their September 23 meeting, the two men will discuss peace negotiations between the Palestinians and Israel, which resumed earlier this year after a three year hiatus, the sources said.
The announcement came hours after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he would meet Obama on September 30 for talks on Iran's nuclear program, the negotiations with the Palestinians and other regional issues.
Israeli and Palestinian negotiators have been holding talks in secret since August after marathon efforts by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry brought them back to the table. The last round of direct talks between the two sides collapsed in September 2010.
Abbas won a diplomatic victory less than a year ago when on November 29 the United Nations General Assembly voted to upgrade the status of the Palestinian Authority to that of a "non-member observer state" despite U.S. and Israeli objections.
Source: Agence France Presse
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