Acting Palestinian Authority chief Mahmoud Abbas will meet with Israeli Vice-Premier Shaul Mofaz on Sunday, the first such high-level meeting in years.
A Palestinian official told Xinhua on Tuesday that the meeting will focus on the prospect of resuming the Palestinian Authority-Israeli talks that have been stalled since 2010.
The official added that the two leaders would hold the meeting either in al-Quds (Jerusalem) or in the West Bank city of Jericho.
Mofaz, the head of the centrist Kadima party, joined the coalition led by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last month, and he has been calling for a meeting with Abbas since then.
Earlier in the day, Russian President Vladimir Putin held a meeting with Abbas, in which he criticized Israel over its continued illegal settlement expansions in the occupied Palestinian territories.
Putin said the settlement activities are “unilateral actions” that are “unconstructive,” adding that Russia has no problem recognizing an independent Palestinian state.
Talks between the Palestinians and Israelis stalled in September 2010 after Israel declined to renew a 10-month freeze on its illegal settlement construction in the occupied West Bank.
The international community regards all the Israeli settlements across the West Bank as illegal under international law.
Nearly 500,000 Israelis live in more than 100 settlements built since the 1967 Israeli occupation of the West Bank and East al-Quds (Jerusalem).
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