Amman - Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas left Jordan for Riyadh Saturday for consultations with Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah on the development of peace talks with Israel ahead of US President George W Bush's trip to the region next week, Palestinian sources said. "The president will brief Saudi leaders on the outcome so far of the negotiations between the Palestinian Authority and Israel on final status issues," Palestinian ambassador to Jordan Atallah Khairy told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.
"The visit has also the aim of coordinating attitudes prior to Bush's visit to the region and to assert the point that the Israeli settlement activity in the Palestinian Territories represented a major hurdle in the path of negotiations," he said.
Bush, who is due to visit Israel and the Palestinian Territories, has expressed opposition to Israel's expansion of settlements.
Khairy indicated that Abbas' visit to Riyadh could give a chance for Saudi Arabia to resume its mediation between Abbas' Fatah group and the hard-line Hamas faction.
The Mecca agreement that was reached between the two Palestinian groups with Saudi mediation in February 2007 faltered after Hamas took over the Gaza Strip by military force in mid-June.
During his three-day stay in Jordan, Abbas held talks with King Abdullah II on latest developments in the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, and the two Arab leaders teamed up to denounce the Israeli settlement activity as detrimental to peace.
Abbas also met with members of the Palestine National Council (PNA), equivalent to Palestinian parliament-in-exile, to brief them on the results of his latest talks with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Khairy said.
