Kerry, Abbas to Meet After Talks Collapse

Local Editor

US Secretary of State John Kerry will meet Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in London on Thursday for the first time since the so-called "peace" talks collapsed in April, a Palestinian official said.

"Secretary Kerry will meet with president Abbas in London on Thursday," State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said in a statement.

"While the door remains open to a "peace" process, the purpose of the meeting is to discuss our ongoing relationship with the Palestinians," she said.

Earlier, a Palestinian official predicted that the "meeting will discuss a possible resumption of negotiations with ‘Israel.'"

"The meeting could be the last attempt by Kerry to revive negotiations," the Palestinian official said, asking to remain anonymous.
For his part, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, who is on a visit to Washington and will meet with Kerry on Tuesday, said the breakdown of the "peace" process was "for all of us a source of great concern."

"The security of ‘Israel' is by no means negotiable, but we know that it will be reinforced by a negotiated settlement," Fabius told an "Israeli" lobby group, AJC Global Jewish Advocacy.

Kerry will be in London for a meeting on Thursday for discussions on the crisis in Syria.

Kerry last met Abbas in Amman in late March, and had planned to return to Ramallah for further talks a few days later when "Israel" made a surprise announcement of plans for 700 new settlements and refused to release a last group of Palestinian prisoners.

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team