Two senior Palestinian officials say CIA chief Mike Pompeo secretly held talks in the West Bank with Mahmoud Abbas, the first high-level meeting between the Palestinian leader and a Trump administration official. The officials said yesterday that the meeting took place a day earlier at Abbas' headquarters in Ramallah. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to reporters about the meeting, which had not been announced.

The meeting, described as "warm and positive," came ahead of White House talks later Wednesday between President Donald Trump and Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu. Palestinian officials have expressed concern they might be sidelined by a Trump administration seen as overtly pro-Israel. Netanyahu's visit came amid pressure from many of his allies to use Trump's election as an opportunity to kill off the two-state solution. It is the first time in four terms that Netanyahu's leadership has coincided with a Republican in the White House.

Meanwhile, Trump's break with decades of support for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is irresponsible and does not advance peace, a senior Palestinian official said yesterday.

"This does not make sense," Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) executive committee member Hanan Ashrawi told AFP. "This is not a responsible policy and it does not serve the cause of peace. "They cannot just say that without an alternative," she added.

On Tuesday, a senior White House official said the United States would no longer seek to dictate the terms of any eventual peace settlement by insisting on a Palestinian state alongside Israel, but would support whatever the two sides agree together.