Livni, Abbas to Meet in Switzerland

JERUSALEM -- Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will meet Thursday on the sidelines of a high-profile conference in Switzerland to explore ways to resume long-stalled peacemaking, an Abbas aide said.

Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev confirmed the two would meet but did not specify when.

Yasser Abed Rabbo, who is in Davos with Abbas, told The Associated Press in a telephone interview that the Palestinian president would meet with Livni in an effort to push forward recent efforts to get negotiations back on track.

Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert met last month to discuss confidence-building measures that would allow the sides to get back to the negotiating table, abandoned more than six years ago.

The two are going to try to push that process forward further next month in a three-way summit with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. The date and venue for that session have not yet been set.