RAMALLAH, July 14 (Xinhua) -- Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert will meet in Jerusalem in ten days, Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said Monday.

    "President Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Olmert agreed in Paris to hold a meeting in Jerusalem in ten days to follow up the negotiations of the permanent status issues," Erekat told the Arabic service of the Israeli Radio.

    Olmert and Abbas met in Paris on Sunday during a conference held there on the Middle East. The two leaders held several meetings in the past few months, but no tangible progress has been made in any of the negotiated issues.

    Chiefs of Israeli and Palestinian negotiators are scheduled to head soon to the United States to hold talks with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and evaluate the current peace negotiations between the two sides.

    Palestinian negotiator Yasser Abed Rabbo had warned several days ago that if no progress comes out of the ongoing negotiations, the Palestinian leadership would consider quitting from the talks with Israel.

    The Israeli expansion of settlements in the West Bank and around Jerusalem, according to Abed Rabbo, is the major obstacle that obstructs a final agreement on the permanent status issues from being reached between the two sides before the end of this year.

    Meanwhile, well-informed Palestinian sources said on Monday that Toni Blair, the committee envoy of the Mideast Quartet -the United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations, is scheduled to visit in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip on Tuesday.

    The sources didn't say if Blair is planning to hold talks with Hamas leaders in Gaza Strip.