Hillary Clinton meets Mehmood Abbas in Abu Dhabi

Abu Dhabi:- US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Saturday, launching a rapid series of meetings with Palestinian and Israeli officials to keep up pressure for a peace deal. She was due to fly to Israel later on Saturday for evening meetings with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman and Defense Minister Ehud Barak.

An Abbas aide said that the meeting with Clinton yielded no progress towards resumption of negotiations with Israel, suspended since December. A senior State Department official said Clinton hoped to get a clear picture of where the two sides stand before she meets Arab foreign ministers at a development summit in Morocco next week to try to drum up regional support for peace moves.