Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is scheduled to arrive in Washington on Wedensday where he will meet with some U.S. top officials who will most probably ask him about Hamas’ participation in the upcoming Parliamentary elections.
Abbas will meet with U.S. President George W. Bush on Thursday, where Abbas will demand the an American intervention to halt the ongoing construction and expansion of settlements and to dismantle the unauthorized settlers’ outposts in the West Bank.
The two will hold a press conference after their meeting in the Rose Garden of the House.
The hot issue in the meeting will be the disarming of the resistance groups, especially Hamas before the Palestinian election, a demand that has been posted by the American administration as a condition for Hamas to take part in the elections scheduled for January 2006.
Abbas and the Palestinian Authority are required by the Palestinian public to end the state of lawlessness in the Palestinian areas.
The Palestinian factions have signed a covenant of honor to maintain calm before and during the Parliamentary elections.
Israel insists to prevent Hamas from taking part in the elections and threatened to keep the checkpoints and road blocks in the West Bank in place to obstruct the polling process.
The checkpoints and roadblocks Israel placed in the West Bank seriously disturb the everyday life of the Palestinians in the West Bank by separating the villages from the main cities.
The U.S. president will also reiterate his commitment to the two-state solution and the political process based on the road map.
It was planned that Abbas will meet with the Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon prior to his meeting with Bush. The Abbas-Sharon meeting was delayed from October 2, to early November, but was called off later.
