Palestinian Authority (PA) chairman Mahmoud Abbas has agreed to a Russian proposal for him to meet Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu as part of a new peace push, an official said Monday, according to AFP.
"We told the Russian side today that president Abbas accepted the Russian initiative about the meeting of Abbas and Netanyahu with President Putin in Moscow," said Abed al-Hafeez Nofal, the Palestinian Authority 'ambassador' to Moscow.
"But it is clear for us that the Israelis are evading the requirements of the meeting," he told AFP by phone, without providing further details.
Abbas is currently travelling in Poland and his entourage could not immediately be reached for comment, noted AFP.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi recently said Russian President Vladimir Putin wanted to host an Israeli-Palestinian summit to revive peace talks that have been stalled since 2014.
Several days later, Netanyahu and Putin held a telephone conversation in which they discussed the peace process, among other things, though a Kremlin spokesman later clarified there was "nothing concrete" yet on a meeting between Abbas and Netanyahu.
On Monday, Netanyahu discussed the proposal as he met with Putin's Middle East envoy Mikhail Bogdanov in Jerusalem.
They "discussed President Putin's proposal to host a face-to-face meeting between the prime minister and president Abbas in Moscow," Netanyahu's office said in a statement.
"The prime minister presented Israel's position that he is always ready to meet with president Abbas directly without preconditions. He is therefore reviewing the Russian president's proposal and the timing of a possible meeting."
Bogdanov was expected in Ramallah for talks with Arab Palestinian officials on Tuesday, noted AFP.
The Palestinian Authority;s 'ambassador' also told Russian news agency Interfax that Bogdanov had met Abbas in Jordan three weeks ago and "received his agreement to participate in such a meeting".
He added that the Palestinian Authority side "had planned for the meeting to take place on September 9."
But he said the talks had been postponed indefinitely "after Israel's decision to take a pause and have a think about agreeing."
Channel 10 News reported last week that Israel had actually agreed to a three-way peace summit with the United States and the PA, but the PA preconditioned such a summit taking place on Israel ceasing construction in Judea and Samaria and releasing additional terrorist prisoners.
The PA chairman has also insisted that any reboot of peace talks with Israel should happen within a clear timeframe and under international supervision.
Peace efforts have been at a standstill since a U.S.-led initiative collapsed in April 2014.
The last substantial public meeting between Abbas and Netanyahu is thought to have been in 2010, though there have been unconfirmed reports of secret meetings since then.
The chairman of the foreign affairs committee in Israel's parliament, Avi Dichter, told journalists Monday he appreciated other countries' efforts to try to mediate between Palestinians and Israelis, but "true negotiations, true talks, a true process will be tete-a-tete."