"When we get down to drafting [an agreement], we will see progress, but that has yet to happen," Mahmoud Abbas said after talks with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Cairo, also commenting that negotiations with Israel were currently at the stage of "an exchange of opinions."
He also said that the Palestinians and the Israelis were committed to reaching an agreement on a final peace settlement, with U.S. mediation, before the end of 2008, but that success should not be taken for granted.
Abbas met with Saudi King Abdullah in Riyadh on Tuesday, where he called for a more proactive role on the part of the United States in putting more pressure on Israel to come to an agreement with the Palestinians.
A Mideast peace conference was held in the U.S. in Annapolis, Maryland last year. Palestinian-Israeli violence has continued unabated since the conference however, and more than 300 people have been killed in clashes since the November talks.
The Palestinian leader also met with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in Jordan on March 30-31, after which he announced that he would resume talks with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.
The Palestinian Authority halted peace talks with Israel seven weeks ago following an Israeli assault on the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip in which some 120 Palestinians died, many of them civilians. Israel said the offensive was in response to rocket attacks on Israeli border towns from the enclave.
Hamas and Fatah agreed on March 23 to open their first direct talks since the hard-line Islamic group seized the Gaza Strip last June, expelling Abbas' Fatah movement.
Fatah receives financial assistance from the West, while Gaza is fully isolated and boycotted by the PNA, the U.S. and Israel.
Abbas said on Tuesday that the Palestinian National Administration backed Russia's plans to hold an international meeting on the Middle East in Moscow.
