An aide to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Wednesday denied reports that the chief of Fatah movement will not run in next presidential elections if the factions agreed to hold early elections.
"These are groundless reports and we don't pay attention to them," said Ahmed Abdel Rahman, Abbas' political aide and a spokesman for Fatah.
"It is Fatah which selects the candidates for the presidential elections ... the president only declares his acceptance or rejection for being nominated as a candidate by Fatah," Abdel Rahman added.
According to al-Quds al-Arabi, a London-based newspaper, Abbas will not run in the elections if Egypt's efforts to broker a national Palestinian reconciliation came up with a deal on holding early presidential and parliamentary elections.
Egypt tries to settle the Palestinian political crisis which widened when Islamic Hamas movement took over the Gaza Strip by force last year after routing pro-Abbas forces. The Hamas-controlled Gaza and the Fatah-dominated West Bank has become politically-separated entities since then.
The early elections were proposed as part of the settlement between Hamas and Fatah though the Islamic movement won 2006 parliamentary elections.
Abbas' term as a president ends in January 2009 and Hamas says it will not recognize him as a president after January.
But Abbas' aides argue that the former parliament made a decision that the next presidential elections should be coincident with the parliamentary elections which will become due in January 2010.
Source: Xinhua
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