MOSCOW. Jan 13 (Interfax) - The Palestine Liberation Organization's (PLO) Steering and Monitoring Committee Secretary General Saeb Erekat has conveyed a message from the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to Russian President Vladimir Putin during negotiations with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Erekat said.
"I have conveyed [to Lavrov] a message from Mr. Mahmoud Abbas to President Vladimir Putin," Erekat told reporters on Friday.
Via the message, "we are requesting that Russia take any steps, to influence the United States in any way, for it not to transfer its embassy to Jerusalem," he said.
It was reported earlier that Abbas has sent a letter to the U.S. President-elect Donald Trump with a warning about the negative consequences of a possible transfer of the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
The U.S. Congress had passed a bill on the transfer of the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem in 1995. But Bill Clinton, who held the presidential post at the time, found it dangerous to move the embassy to a city the status of which is among the key issues of the Middle Eastern settlement. In accordance with his powers, Clinton postponed the move every six months.
Both George W. Bush and Barack Obama followed his example.
However, Trump, who will assume office on January 20, promised to move the embassy to Jerusalem during his election campaign.