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Row clings over Netanyahu "canceling" trip to White House

Xinhua, March 8, 2016 Adjust font size:

The Israeli prime minister's office denied Tuesday a claim by the White House that Benjamin Netanyahu "surprised" the U.S. administration by canceling a scheduled visit to Washington.

A spokesperson for the White House said on Monday that it was "surprised" to only learn from media reports that Netanyahu turned down an invitation to meet President Barack Obama for talks later this month.

The White House suggested hosting Netanyahu on March 18, during his visit to the annual conference of the pro-Israel lobby group of AIPAC.

In a statement, the prime minister's office said Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Ron Dermer told the Obama administration on Friday that there was "a good chance" that Netanyahu would not make the trip to Washington.

"On Monday, news reports suggested that the prime minister would not travel to Washington and erroneously stated that the president was unwilling to meet with the prime minister," the statement read.

The office "immediately corrected the erroneous news reports and officially informed the administration that Netanyahu would not be coming to Washington," according to the statement.

"The PM is looking forward to the visit of Vice President Biden and discussing how we can meet the many challenges facing the region," the statement added.

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden is expected to arrive in Israel on Tuesday afternoon before he travels to Ramallah to meet with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

The incident was the latest in Netanyahu and Obama's rocky relations, which has strained over Netanyahu's opposition to the nuclear agreement with Iran. Enditem