US secretary of state Hillary Clinton will meet Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Abu Dhabi on Saturday, a US official said with Washington keeping up pressure for a new Mideast peace deal.
Clinton, wrapping up a three-day visit to Pakistan, was due to travel to Abu Dhabi on Friday and would meet both Abbas and the leadership of the Gulf state on Saturday, the official said on condition of anonymity.
Clinton was also expected to meet Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu at some point later in the weekend, although the details of this were not immediately available.
The two meetings come as Clinton prepares to meet Arab foreign ministers at a development summit in Morocco next week in an effort to drum up regional support for new peace moves.
Clinton's weekend visit to the Mideast region will be her second since US President Barack Obama took office in January. A senior US envoy, George Mitchell, has been shuttling between Israeli and Palestinian leaders every few weeks.
Israeli and Palestinian officials have held out little chance of an imminent resumption of talks suspended since December. Abbas insists Israel freeze settlement activity under a 2003 "road map" for peace, a demand Netanyahu has rejected.
Netanyahu has acceded to US pressure to talk of negotiating the creation of a Palestinian state, but only if it is demilitarized and if Palestinians agree to recognize Israel as a Jewish state.
