US Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama will meet Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas next week, officials said on Monday. Senior Palestinian diplomat Saeb Erakat confirmed that Obama would visit Abbas in the occupied West Bank town of Ramallah on July 23. "President Abbas welcomes this important visit and considers it evidence of the importance of the Palestinian issue in American foreign policy," he said.
Obama will also meet Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert either on the same day or the previous evening, according to an Israeli official.
Both meetings will come after a stopover in Jordan, where Obama will meet King Abdullah II.
Obama is also expected to visit Germany, France and Britain before the end of July in his first international tour since effectively securing the Democratic Party nomination.
He is also due to travel in the next month or so to Iraq and Afghanistan, although details have not been made public for security reasons.
Republican presidential candidate John McCain visited Israel in March as part of a Senate fact-finding mission but did not meet Abbas.
Obama sparked outrage among Palestinians in early June when he told a major US pro-Israel lobbying group that Jerusalem must remain the "undivided" capital of Jerusalem.
The international community including the United States does not recognise Israel's claim to Arab east Jerusalem, which it seized and annexed in the 1967 war but which the Palestinians want as the capital of their future state.
Obama has since backed away from the remarks, saying the future status of the city should be negotiated by Israel and the Palestinians and that everyone should have access to its holy sites, sacred to Jews, Christians, and Muslims.