Olmert expected to meet Abbas next week

By Adam Entous

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert will soon meet Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, resuming U.S.-brokered talks delayed by a political crisis within the Israeli government, Olmert's office said on Tuesday.

Miri Eisin, spokeswoman for the prime minister, declined to give a date for the meeting but an Israeli government source said it would take place next week, most likely in the West Bank city of Jericho.

Saeb Erekat, an Abbas aide, said: "In principle we are not against any meeting. We haven't agreed on a date."

Olmert's office also announced that he would visit Jordan on May 16 to meet Jordanian King Abdullah and attend a conference.

The Israeli leader's political future has been clouded by criticism levelled by a domestic inquiry over his decision to launch last year's war against Lebanon's Hezbollah guerrillas.

Olmert has resisted public pressure, including from his own foreign minister, Tzipi Livni, to step down over the interim findings by the government-appointed commission.

Ex-prime minister Ehud Barak, a candidate to lead the Labour Party, Olmert's senior coalition partner, also called on him to quit but said that if he was elected on May 28, he would agree to serve for a limited period as defence minister in the current government.

Some Israeli officials said the postponement of an upcoming visit by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice came as a surprise and raised questions about whether Washington was distancing itself from the embattled prime minister.