U.S. President George W. Bush will meet with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in New York on Monday during the United Nations General Assembly meetings, the White House said. The meeting will be to “continue discussions on helping the Palestinian Authority and on issues related to an eventual two-state solution of Israel and Palestine living side by side in peace and security,” White House National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe said. It was not clear whether Bush would also meet Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in New York. The meeting next week would follow a round of talks this week between U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Abbas and Olmert. Rice is in the region trying to lay plans for a U.S.-sponsored peace conference later this year. Rice said Olmert and Abbas had come a “very, very long way” since she met with them both last February in Jerusalem. During her 36-hour diplomatic push, she assured Abbas that the peace conference scheduled for November near Washington should put the Palestinians firmly on the path to establishing their own state, according to a report of Reuters.
