Mahmoud Abbas pulls out of meeting with US Vice President

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas will not meet US Vice President Mike Pence later this month, according to a senior adviser to the PA leader.

Pence was due to meet Abbas in Bethlehem as part of his Middle East tour, though three days after US President Donald Trump announced how the US will now be recognising Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, Majdi al-Khalidi, Abbas’s diplomatic affairs adviser, told official PA radio: “There will not be a meeting with Pence. The matter is bigger than a mere meeting because the United States, in its decisions on Jerusalem, crossed redlines.”

In reply, a White House spokesman said the meeting would still be going ahead, adding: “it would be counterproductive for him to pull out of the meeting,” according to Agence France-Presse.