BICOM

Israel’s Prime Minister yesterday reiterated his commitment to meet his Palestinian counterpart after meeting the Russian President’s envoy.

Mikhail Bogdanov, Russia’s deputy foreign minister for Middle East affairs met Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday in Jerusalem. They discussed the possibility of a Russian-brokered meeting between Netanyahu and Mahmoud Abbas, which was recently suggested by President Vladimir Putin. Following the meeting, Netanyahu’s bureau released a statement which said that Israel’s Prime Minister is “always willing to meet Abbas without preconditions, which is why he is considering the Russian president’s proposal and the timing of a meeting”.

According to Haaretz, Bogdanov has already spoken to both the Israeli and Palestinian envoys in Russia about the initiative, while Netanyahu and Putin have spoken on the phone about a potential meeting with Abbas.

Bogdanov will travel to Ramallah today to relay Netanyahu’s response to the Palestinian Authority (PA) leadership. However, PA sources denied a report in Russia’s Interfax news agency, which said that Abbas is willing to meet with Netanyahu. It is widely reported that Abbas has set conditions for a meeting to take place. He reportedly wants Israel to freeze construction in the West Bank and Jerusalem and to release the final tranche of Palestinian prisoners which were scheduled to be freed before US-brokered peace talks collapsed in 2014.

Speculation over a possible Moscow meeting has been growing since Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi publicly stated two weeks ago that Putin had offered to host talks. In May, al-Sisi himself made a surprising public plea for Israel and the Palestinians to renew peace talks in the context of brokering a wider regional peace. Netanyahu endorsed al-Sisi’s initiative, but Abbas is thought to favour a French plan to convene an international peace conference before the end of the year.

The process, which has yet to include any Israeli or Palestinian representatives, is opposed by Israel as a way for the Palestinians to avoid bilateral talks with Israel.