PM Olmert's meeting with Abbas delayed until Wednesday - Haaretz

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		Prime Minister Ehud Olmert (R) and PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas. (Archives)

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Last update - 23:41 30/09/2007

PM Olmert's meeting with Abbas delayed until Wednesday

By Reuters

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas will meet on Wednesday to try to narrow differences over a U.S.-led conference on Palestinian statehood, officials said on Sunday.

Government spokesman David Baker said the meeting would take place in Olmert's residence in Jerusalem, with negotiating teams from either side holding their first formal talks separately.

The teams will work on a "joint statement to be presented at the conclusion of the upcoming international meeting", Baker said.

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Baker and a senior Palestinian negotiator said the Abbas-Olmert meeting, initially scheduled for Tuesday, would take place on Wednesday. Baker cited "technical reasons" for the delay.

Palestinian sources said Abbas was holding previously unscheduled meetings in Jordan following a visit to Egypt.

The Palestinian negotiator denied that talks between the negotiating teams had been set. "That will be decided tomorrow [Monday]," the negotiator said.

Olmert is seeking a joint statement for the conference, planned for mid-to-late November. Abbas wants an explicit "framework" agreement with a timeline for implementation.

"We have to go there with a clear and specific document, after which it could be possible to start detailed negotiations on what we call final status issues," Abbas said in Cairo on Sunday after meeting Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

"I believe that going there with a general statement would not be beneficial," he said.

A U.S. official said on Sunday that the conference's venue would likely be the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland rather than the presidential retreat at Camp David, site of previous Middle East peace talks that had varying degrees of success.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit said U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice would visit the region in mid-October "for consultations with the Palestinian and Israeli parties, Egypt and maybe other Arab states to prepare for the conference," the official Middle East News Agency reported.

Related articles:
Israel worried PA will harden its stance ahead of peace summit
PA official: Abbas, Olmert likely to hold meeting on Tuesday

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