Abbas will not seek re-election: PLO
PLO is still trying to persuade the president to run
Ramallah: Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will not seek reelection in the elections slated for January, because of lack of progress in peace talks with Israel, Palestinian officials said Thursday.
Abbas will give a speech later in the day to explain his decision not to run, one official said.
The Western-backed Palestinian leader announced his plans at a meeting of the executive committee of the Palestine Liberation Organisation in the occupied-West Bank.
"The president insists on not running in the upcoming election," an official who attended the meeting told reporters.
But senior Abbas aide Yasser Abed Rabo said the committee's members were still trying to persuade the president to run.
Abbas had called for the January election last month after failing to reach a unity deal with rival group Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip.
Abbas has rejected US calls to resume peace negotations with Israel, saying he was sticking by his demand that Israel first halt all colony expansion under a 2003 US-back peace road map.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who met Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday, said Palestinians should enter peace talks first and resolve the colony issue later.
Netanyahu has agreed to limit contsruction in colonys in the West Bank, territory Israel captured in a 1967 war, rather than a total freeze. He says Israel must accommodate the "natural growth" in Jewish neighbourhoods.
Another Palestinian official said Abbas made his decision because of the, "stagnation in the peace process and the continuation of Israeli colony activities".
