Top US Senate Republican Mitch McConnell said he will meet President Barack Obama on Friday at the White House, amid a tense stand-off over how to avoid the so-called "fiscal cliff."

"I'm going to be down there at the president's meeting, and we'll see who else is there," McConnell told reporters Thursday, declining to say whether the other three leaders in Congress, including House Speaker John Boehner, would attend the meeting, just days before a year-end deadline for a fiscal deal.