Abbas: No meeting with Netanyahu right now

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has no plans to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Abbas said Thursday night — contradicting reports from earlier in the day that the two leaders would meet some time this month to try to advance long-stalled peace talks.

On Wednesday, Palestinian media reported that Netanyahu would meet PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad within a matter of days, with a high-ranking Palestinian delegation set to deliver to Netanyahu a letter from Abbas delineating his demands for further negotiations.

A Netanyahu-Abbas meeting would represent a thaw in icy relations between the two leaders, who have not spoken in months.

Abbas poured cold water on that notion, however; Reshet Bet quoted Abbas as saying Thursday that “the Palestinian Authority no longer feels like an authority” and that the PA was losing patience with the peace process because it “sees how Israeli settlements swallow up Palestinian land.”