PA Denies Report That Abbas Has Agreed to Moscow Talks With Netanyahu

A senior Palestinian Authority source has denied a Russian media report saying that PA President Mahmoud Abbas agreed to meet Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu for direct talks in Moscow.

The PA said the report from Russian news agency Interfax was erroneous, and that the PA is still awaiting tanswers to questions it has submitted concerning the proposed summit, the source said, according to The Times of Israel.

The source stressed again that the Palestinians remain committed to its demand that Israel suspend building in Yehudah and Shomron and agree to a prisoner release as a precondition to resuming negotiations.

In addition, the source said he is “puzzled” by the fact that news of Abbas’s supposed willingness to meet Netanyahu first appeared in the Russian Interfax news agency rather than PA media.