04/07/2012 (Agence Europe) - Visit by Palestinian president. The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, will meet several European leaders, including EU High Representative Catherine Ashton in Paris on Friday 6 July. He will also meet the president of France, François Hollande, the British minister for foreign affairs, William Hague, and the US secretary of State, Hillary Clinton. According to Abbas, the peace process with Israel is “clinically dead”, which he blamed on the Israelis. Over the past few months he has exchanged letters with the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, following informal meetings between Palestinians and Israelis in Jordan last January which did not succeed in bringing them to the negotiating table. (CG/transl.fl)