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Abbas, Obama to meet in US on May 28

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-04-22 19:55

RAMALLAH -- Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat confirmed Wednesday that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will meet with US President Barack Obama in Washington on May 28.

Erekat told reporters that the meeting "will be held on May 28," adding that the meeting "will be so important, and that Abbas would ask Obama "to turn the Arab peace initiative and the roadmap plan into reality."

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"The vision of the two-state solution needs to become a reality on the ground, including the complete cessation of all kinds of settlements activities in the West Bank," said Erekat.

Earlier, Nabil Abu Rudeineh, spokesman for the Palestinian presidency, said in a statements that the meeting "is scheduled to be held in the White House by the end of May."

However, Abu Rudeineh did not disclose the specific date for the meeting.

The upcoming meeting will be the first of its kind since Obama took office in January. Obama has said that his administration will exert every possible effort to push forward the Middle East peace process.

Abu Rudeineh described the upcoming meeting between Abbas and Obama as "important," adding that "the meeting will be like standing on a crossroad related to the future of the Middle East peace process."

"President Abbas' visit would draw the characteristics of the future Arab and Palestinian diplomatic movements for several years, " said the spokesman.

He said Obama's support for the two-state solution and his administration's involvement in the Mideast peace process "must be accompanied with a US pressure on Israel to make its position clear."

Israel's new Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu leading a right- leaning government made repeated pledges to advance the peace process, but has so far danced around the two-state principle.

Based on the two-state principle, the 2002 Arab peace initiative offers Israel a full peace with all Arab state in return for an Israeli withdrawal from all territories occupied since the 1967 Six-Day War.