Palestinian Authority (PA) chairman Mahmoud Abbas met on Thursday with US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for talks on reviving a two-state solution to the conflict, Abbas' office said, according to the AFP news agency.
It was one of the highest-level meetings with an American official in recent years for Abbas, who urged US action on what he described as "unilateral Israeli practices" that "undermine a two-state solution."
Those included expansion of Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria and moves to evict Palestinian Arabs from eastern Jerusalem, which Palestinian Arabs claim as the capital of the future state they seek to establish.
The PA had a tense relationship with the Trump administration and had been boycotting the US since 2017, in protest of Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and the relocation of the US embassy in Israel to the city.
However, since taking office, the Biden administration has renewed ties with the PA and had been crafting a plan aimed at “resetting” US ties with the PA.
Last month, senior US and PA officials met virtually to renew the US-Palestinian Economic Dialogue for the first time in five years. Several weeks ago, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke with Abbas.
Pelosi’s meeting with Abbas came a day after she visited the Knesset and met with Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and thanked her for her ongoing support for Israel.