Abbas says will not seek reelection - officials

By Mohammed Assadi

RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) - Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said Thursday he would not seek re-election in a vote planned for January, citing stalemate in peace talks with Israel, but Palestinian officials urged him to change his mind.

Amid speculation that this effective resignation offer -- by no means Abbas's first -- was largely a negotiating tactic aimed at rallying Western and Arab support against Israel's refusal to halt West Bank settlement expansion, the president was to speak later Thursday to explain his decision, 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 Reuters.

But senior Abbas aide Yasser Abed Rabo said the committee's members were still trying to persuade him to run.

Abbas had called for the January election last month after failing to reach a unity deal with rival Islamist group Hamas, which rejects any peace moves with Israel.

Hamas won parliamentary elections in 2006 and wrested control of the Gaza Strip from forces loyal to Abbas a year later. It has said it will not take part in parliamentary and presidential elections scheduled for January 24 in the absence of a unity deal with Abbas' Fatah faction.

Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri said Abbas's decision whether or not to run was "internal Fatah business."