The comments by Mahmoud Abbas came amid a series of efforts by Russian Federation and other countries to hold the first substantive meeting with Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu in several years.
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Speaking in Warsaw, Abbas said on Tuesday that he had accepted an invitation from Russian President Vladimir Putin to a meeting with Netanyahu on September 9.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu emphasized Israel’s close relationship with the Netherlands Wednesday, in a meeting with Ankie Broekers-Knol, the President of the Dutch Senate, at the Dutch States General (parliament) in The Hague, according to Israel’s Government Press Office.
Abbas’s office said in an official statement that Netanyahu’s request to postpone the meeting “assures that he (Netanyahu) is evading from any global initiative to rescue the stalled peace process”. However, he said the Israelis had informed a Russian envoy on Monday that the meeting should be put off to a later date.
“I$3 f we don’t also band together to defeat militant Islam in other parts of the Middle East, more will die, and millions more will flee their homes”.
The last direct peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians, sponsored by the United States, stopped in April 2014, after nine months without progress, due to critical differences regarding settlements and security.
Earlier this week, a former Dutch prime minister, Dries van Agt, described Netanyahu as a “war criminal” and said he should be prosecuted.
Abbas said this week that a meeting scheduled in Moscow had been postponed at Israel’s request.
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Abdul Rahim reiterated to Bogdanov that Palestinians support president Putin’s initiative. Mitrokhin has said that the KGB recruited the “then-head of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Wadi Haddad, as an agent in the 1970s”, according to the Times of Israel.
