Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas will meet US President Barack Obama in Washington next month, a top Palestinian official told AFP on Wednesday. "The meeting between president Abbas and President Obama is scheduled for May 28 in Washington," said Palestinian senior negotiator Saeb Erakat. "This is an extremely important meeting," he said.
"President Abbas will ask President Obama to work toward the vision of two states and to introduce mechanisms toward that end, which will in effect mean the immediate stop to settlement activity in all Palestinian territories."
Erakat spoke a day after Washington declared that Obama had invited Abbas, Netanyahu and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to visit the White House to try to advance peace efforts. Obama has "invited other key partners in the effort to achieve a comprehensive peace in the Middle East to the White House in the coming weeks," State Department spokesman Robert Gibbs said on Tuesday after Obama met Jordanian King Abdullah II.
"With each of them the president will discuss ways the United States can strengthen and deepen our partnerships with them, as well as the steps all parties must take to help achieve peace between Israelis and Palestinians, and between Israel and the Arab states," Gibbs added.
Netanyahu is due to travel to Washington sometime around May 18, with no exact date set for the visit so far.
