| GEO World | | Olmert to meet Abbas before leaving for Washington | Updated at: 0007 PST, Saturday, May 31, 2008
 RAMALLAH, West Bank: Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert will meet on Monday to discuss peace talks, which are threatened by a major political crisis in Israel, officials said on Friday.
The meeting will take place at Olmert's Jerusalem residence, senior Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat said.
A senior Israeli government official confirmed the two leaders would meet before Olmert leaves on Monday night to Washington for talks with President George W. Bush.
The meeting "will focus on the ongoing negotiations, the situation on the ground and the truce talks" between Israel and the Islamist Hamas movement in Gaza, which are being mediated by Egypt, Erakat said.
Peace talks between the two sides have made virtually no apparent progress since they were formally relaunched in November at a US-hosted conference in Annapolis, Maryland.
They are facing a new hurdle with Olmert now hit by a chorus of calls to resign over suspicions he unlawfully took large sums of money from a US millionaire before becoming premier. |  |
|
