Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad speaks with President Mahmoud Abbas at his headquarters in Ramallah. (Maan Images)

Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, has said he will not seek re-election when elections are held in January, Palestinian officials have said.

"The president insists on not running in the upcoming election," an official from the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) executive committee said on Thursday.

Another PLO official said Abbas, who heads the Fatah faction in the West Bank, will give a speech later on Thursday explaining his decision not to run.

Saeb Erakat, the chief Palestinian negotiator, said: "At the end of the day it's not the presidency.

"It's the question of the Israeli government continuing settlement activity, fait accompli policies, dictation; and nineteen years after trying to achive a two-state solution, maybe the president has come to his moment of truth, and I think he'll specify this personally."

Abbas decree

Abbas recently issued a decree announcing that presidential and parliamentary polls would take place on January 24.

But the Hamas-run interior ministry in the Gaza Strip ordered Palestinians in the territory not to take part in the elections.

The interior ministry said in a statement the elections had been called "by figures who do not have the right to declare it"...

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Nour Odeh, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Ramallah, West Bank, said: "We have confirmation that the Palestinian president has informed the top leadership of his Fatah movement that he [Abbas] doesn't intend to seek re-election.

"He wants Fatah to come up with a different candidate and he told the PLO executive committee the same thing this afternoon.

"Both leadership bodies [Fatah and PLO] have rejected this decision. They have urged him to reconsider but he hasn't given them a final answer."

Abbas's decision not to take part in the elections comes days after Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, visited Israel to try to kickstart the Israeli-Palestinian peace process which has stalled over Israel's refusal to halt settlement activity in the occupied territories.

Israeli position

Al Jazeera's Jacky Rowland in Jerusalem said: "The official position of the Israeli side is that this is an internal Palestinian matter and, therefore, Israel won't be making any comment at all.

To read the full article please visit Al Jazeera.