Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas hosts US delegation in Ramallah

Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas hosted on Saturday a US delegation led by Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Barbara Leaf, ahead of an expected visit of President Joe Biden.

Abbas reiterated his requests to remove the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) from the US list of terrorist entities during the meeting, his office said.

The Palestinian president also requested that the PLO's office in Washington and the American consulate for east Jerusalem be reopened after both were closed under the Trump administration, the Palestinian presidency said in a statement.

Leaf, who began a three-day trip to the occupied Palestinian territories and Israel on Saturday, met Abbas "to discuss the US-Palestinian relationship, US assistance to Palestinians, deepening ties + how Palestinians and Israelis alike deserve equal measures of freedom, security & prosperity," the State Department said.

Biden has pledged to reopen the consulate, closed under Donald Trump, whose administration recognised Jerusalem as Israel's capital despite a continued occupation by Israeli forces in the city and widely documented human rights abuses against Palestinian residents. 

Israel opposes the Palestinian consulate in Jerusalem, saying the US should open this diplomatic mission in Ramallah, the seat of the Palestinian Authority in the occupied West Bank.

Meanwhile, the US has in recent days changed the title of its Palestinian Affairs Unit to Office of Palestinian Affairs (OPA), without defining it as a consulate.

The unit "operates under the auspices of the US Embassy in Jerusalem, and reports on substantive matters directly to the" State Department, an OPA spokesperson said, noting the new structuring was "to strengthen our diplomatic reporting and public diplomacy engagement".