MOSCOW (AA) – Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have agreed "in principle" to meet in Moscow, according to the Russian Foreign Ministry Thursday.
"Netanyahu and Abbas have agreed in principle to meet in Moscow,” spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told a weekly press conference.
Both sides are trying to find a suitable time for the meeting, and contacts are ongoing in this regard, she added.
Abbas on Tuesday said he had agreed to meet Netanyahu in the Russian capital as part of efforts aimed at reviving the stalled peace talks between the two sides.
“Russian President Russian Putin proposed a meeting on Sept. 9 in Moscow and I agreed to it,” Abbas told a joint conference with his Polish counterpart Andrzej Duda in Warsaw.
He, however, said Netanyahu had asked to postpone the meeting. “So there will be no meeting for now,” Abbas said.
The Palestinian leader went on to assert that he was ready to meet Netanyahu anywhere.
“I only care about the establishment of an independent Palestinian state within pre-1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital,” he said.
On Monday, Netanyahu met Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov in Jerusalem to discuss a Russian proposal to host a meeting between him and Abbas in Moscow.
In a statement following the meeting, Netanyahu’s office said the Israeli premier was always ready to meet Abbas directly and without preconditions.
The U.S.-sponsored peace talks between Palestinians and Israelis collapsed in 2014 when the latter objected to the formation of a Palestinian unity government between the umbrella Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and Hamas, which controls the blockaded Gaza Strip.