Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert are expected to meet for the first time in Jordan on Wednesday alongside King Abdullah II, a source in the Palestinian president's office said.
"Abbas and Olmert will attend an informal meeting with King Abdullah on Wednesday," the source told AFP. "They (Abbas and Olmert) will be there because they are invited to the conference," he added, referring to a meeting of Nobel laureates scheduled to take place in the world heritage site of Petra on Wednesday and Thursday.
Israeli and Palestinian officials said the two leaders would attend a small breakfast meeting Thursday hosted by Jordan's King Abdullah II. The officials said there were no immediate plans for a private meeting.
A spokesman in the Israeli prime minister's office said however that Olmert was scheduled to leave on Thursday to spend "an hour or two" in Petra. Asked about the possibility of a meeting between the Israeli premier and the Palestinian president, the source said he could neither confirm nor deny the report.
