Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said tonight that he won't run in elections slated for January and that he considered a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to be still achievable, Bloomberg reported.
"I have informed the Fatah Central Committee and the PLO that I have no desire to be a candidate in the next elections," Abbas said in an address televised on Palestinian television. "This decision is not a bargaining tactic."
Efforts by the U.S. to get Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu back to the negotiating table have failed so far. Abbas has faced growing Palestinian criticism, especially last month after initially agreeing to postpone a United Nations debate on a report accusing Israel and Hamas of committing war crimes during Israel's military operation in the Gaza Strip earlier this year.
Abbas, who spoke in the West Bank city of Ramallah, said a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was still possible, though "it is facing great dangers."
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said the administration has "tremendous respect for President Abbas" and called him "an important and historic leader for the Palestinian people and a true partner for the United States."
"Whatever he decides, we look forward to continuing to work with him" to "make the lives of Palestinians better," Gibbs said today at the White House.
The 70-year-old Abbas, who succeeded Yasser Arafat as president of the authority in 2005, said two weeks ago that he wants to hold new presidential and legislative elections on Jan. 24, 2010.
The Islamic Hamas movement, which controls Gaza, has challenged the legitimacy of Abbas's West Bank-based government, and Egyptian-mediated efforts to reconcile them haven't been successful.
Abbas "has failed miserably," a Hamas spokesman, Taher al-Noono, told the Egyptian state-run Nile News. He called Abbas's announcement a "maneuver for the international community to obtain gains that could help him run again."
Members of the Palestine Liberation Organization Executive Committee had told Abbas they want him to run, PLO Secretary- General Yasser Abed Rabbo said at a press conference earlier today in Ramallah.
"It looks like Abbas's final word," said Mkhaimar Abusada, a political scientist at Al-Azhar University in Gaza. "He's very frustrated with the U.S. and Israel. He left the door a little open, but not very wide."
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