Obama campaign denies reports of covert Jerusalem talks with Abbas

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama's campaign denied reports published in a Lebanese newspaper, which claimed that Obama and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas had reached a secret understanding on the matter of Jerusalem.

A statement by Ambassador Dennis Ross, one of Obama's key advisors on foreign policy, said the report was false. "As someone who was present in Senator Obama’s meeting with the Palestinian leadership, I can state definitively that there were no secret commitments made, and no discussion of Jerusalem whatsoever," it said. (Yitzhak Benhorin)