Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator, described Netanyahu's invitation as "nothing more than propaganda . . . Netanyahu's invitation is meant to cover his practices in Jerusalem."

Netanyahu extended the invitation after a meeting with visiting US Middle East peace envoy George Mitchell on Wednesday.

The US administration, which failed to bring the Palestinian Authority and Israel to direct peace negotiations that stopped in December 2008, managed to convince the two sides to start first with the four-month indirect proximity talks, focusing on issues of settlements, borders and security, and then go for direct talks.

Israel Radio reported Wednesday that the US administration "is trying to crystallize a compromise in which Israel keeps its partial freeze of settlement construction in the West Bank while the Palestinians unconditionally accept going for direct negotiations with Israel."

Abbas said during a meeting with six Israeli journalists in his Ramallah office on Wednesday that originally he wanted to hear from Netanyahu whether he was willing to accept the understandings agreed upon by his predecessor, Ehud Olmert.

Israeli media said that Olmert proposed at the end of 2008 to return 93.5-to-93.7 percent of West Bank land to the Palestinians and to handle the Jerusalem question under an international framework as his "final offer." The Palestinian Authority rejected his offer.

When no answer from Netanyahu was forthcoming regarding the Olmert offer, Abbas said at the briefing that he sent a message through Mitchell saying that he would be satisfied with an answer on only two of the issues: borders and security.

"Answers like these are necessary to see if we are speaking the same language, and then it will be possible to continue. It is preferable that direct talks do not explode after 10 minutes, and then who knows when we will be able to renew negotiations again," Abbas said.

The Palestinian leader said he would be willing to engage in direct negotiations with Netanyahu as soon as he received an answer. "How can we go to direct negotiations when we don't know the agenda of the negotiations?" he asked. "Is there an agreement to discuss the border and security issues? We don't know."

"Regarding borders, we call for the establishment of a Palestinian state along the 1967 border, with East Jerusalem as our capital, and western Jerusalem your capital," he was quoted as saying.

Abbas said that in principle, the Palestinians have agreed to alterations in the 1967 border as long as it was done at a one-to-one ratio.