Abbas resigns as PLO chairman to activate new election

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said on Sunday that he had resigned as the chairman of Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) executive committee to reactivate the organization.

Abbas and nine PLO executive committee members resigned on Saturday and called for an emergency meeting of the Palestinian National Council (PNC), the parliament in exile, to convene and elect new PLO members.

According to the Palestinian law, the PNC has to convene within 30 working days in case more than one third of the PLO executive committee's 18 members resign.

Abbas told reporters that the executive committee is the government of the state of Palestine, and that it represents the Palestinian people in the occupied Palestinian territories and in the Diaspora.

"We are passing through hard circumstances and what we need is to reactivate the PLO executive committee; therefore I resigned together with nine other members," Abbas said, adding that within one month, the PNC should convene and a new PLO executive committee has to be elected.

On Saturday, Abbas chaired a meeting of the PLO executive committee in Ramallah and announced that he and nine other members had resigned. They will wait for the PNC to convene and elect new executive committee.

Officials in the PLO executive committee earlier announced that the exceptional convention of the PNA will be devoted to electing a new executive committee and debating the difficult Palestinian situation.

Meanwhile, Abbas, who is still the president of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), expressed readiness to visit Tehran, but also said the time for the visit has not been decided.

"One of the PLO executive committee members visited Iran last week and this visit strengthened the bilateral ties between the two countries mainly after Iran reached the nuclear deal with the world," said Abbas.

The Islamic Hamas movement, which rules the Gaza Strip, slammed on Sunday the resignations of Abbas and nine other members.

The Hamas spokesman in Gaza, Sami Abu Zhuri, said that the resignation "is a unilateral call for holding the Palestinian National Council ... it is a retreat and a cope on reconciliation."

"The call to convene the PNC to elect new executive committee shows a total ignorance, unilateralism and an absence to real intentions for achieving a real internal reconciliation," said Abu Zuhri.

Hamas, which is not represented in the PLO executive committee, said such resignations "is a clear call for keeping the internal Palestinian division."