Both the United States and the Europeans appeared to be working to buy more time to avert the looming clash, with Abbas determined to press ahead with plans to submit a formal application to UN chief Ban Ki-moon on Friday.
Obama was to meet Abbas on Wednesday, just hours after talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a US official said.
The president will be able to say, very directly, why he believes that an action at the United Nations is not a way to achieve a Palestinian state,” national security advisor Ben Rhodes said.
President Abbas has indicated his intent to go to the Security Council.
President Obama has been clear that we do not believe that that will lead to a Palestinian state.
The second point though, what we’re focused on, is having a basis for direct negotiations to achieve a Palestinian state,” he added.
Obama has already called for negotiations to resume using the 1967 lines – encompassing the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip – as a starting point for the contours of an eventual Palestinian state.
European diplomats and the Middle East Quartet – comprising the European Union, the United States, the United Nations and Russia – were all seeking to head off the confrontation.
Sources close to the negotiations who asked to remain anonymous said the focus was on trying to buy time to allow a broader path towards resuming the direct Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, which last collapsed in September 2010.
One possibility was that Ban would not hand over Abbas’s letter straight away to the Security Council, a European source told AFP, adding there were other “diplomatic airbags” that could be used to defuse tensions.
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