President Mahmoud Abbas held on Wednesday a series of separate meetings with world leaders in New York on the sideline of the 73rd session of the United Nations General Assembly, which the President is expected to address later Thursday.

President Abbas first met his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyib Erdogan, before meeting the Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte and  his Foreign Minister Stef Blok, foreign minister of Bahrain, Sheikh Khaled bin Hamad Al Khalifa, and Dani Abraham, head of the US-based Center for Middle East Peace.

The President briefed his guests on the latest in the deadlocked peace process as a result of Israeli actions and US decisions that sabotaged the peace process as well as Palestinian efforts to reach a peaceful settlement with Israel based on the two-state solution through an international multilateral track that would lead to the establishment of an independent and sovereign Palestinian state in the territories Israel occupied in June 1967 with East Jerusalem as its capital.

President Abbas is expected to attend on Thursday a meeting for the G77 countries and China before addressing the General Assembly around noon New York time (7:00 pm Palestine time).