Obama to host tripartite meeting with Israeli PM and Palestinian President

Jerusalem, Sep 20 (ANI): In an effort to renew the peace process in the Middle East, President Barack Obama will host a tripartite meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Tuesday. White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said the meeting would take place after Obama meets separately with each of the two leaders.

"These meetings will continue the efforts of President Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and Special Envoy George Mitchell to lay the groundwork for the relaunch of negotiations, and to create a positive context for those negotiations so that they can succeed," the Jerusalem Post quoted a White House statement, as saying.

The meetings will take place in New York on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly conference.

The White House announcement of the meeting comes as something of a surprise, since both Israel and the PA until Saturday continued to blame each other for the current stall in peace talks

And recently, Mitchell had failed to make progress in talks with the two leaders.

On Saturday, Mitchell said: "It is another sign of the president's deep commitment to comprehensive peace that he wants to personally engage at this juncture." (ANI)