The New Nation - Internet Edition

AFP, Aboard Air Force One

US President George W. Bush has invited Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas to the White House in a bid to advance the faltering Middle East peace process, a US official said Thursday. The move was part of a continuing effort "to work with the Palestinians and the Israelis as well as other countries in the region in realizing a Palestinian state living side by side in peace and security with Israel," said spokesman for the national security council Gordon Johndroe. Abbas has been invited to visit around May 1, although the "details are still being worked out," Johndroe told reporters as Bush flew to Ohio to give an address on the US "war on terror." A senior Palestinian official said on Wednesday that the US consul in Jerusalem, Jacob Walles, had transmitted the invitation to Abbas to travel to Washington on April 24.