He wouldn't deny the "Jewish right" to Israel but insisted peace requires ceding of East Jerusalem, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has said.

Haaretz has reported that Abbas met on Wednesday in Washington with about 30 Jewish leaders from the Anti-Defamation League, America's Pro-Israel Lobby and the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations in a 2-hour roundtable discussion.

Ramallah, Jan 3 - Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas Saturday separately discussed the fate of the stalled Middle East peace process with US and Russian diplomats.

The Palestinian state-run news agency Wafa reported that Abbas held talks at his office in Ramallah first with US Consul General in Jerusalem Daniel Rubinstein, and then with the Russian diplomatic representative to the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) Sergi Kozlov, Xinhua reported.

Ramallah, Jan 1 : Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas accused Israel Thursday of trying to sabotage Palestinian achievements - mainly the enforcement of law and order, stability and security in the West Bank - through its military incursions and killing of Palestinians.

In an address in Ramallah to mark the 45th anniversary of the first attack by his Fatah organisation against Israel, on Jan 3, 1965, Abbas said the Palestinian people will not fall into the Israel trap and resort to violence to retaliate against these Israeli actions.

Riyadh, Dec 31 : Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said Wednesday the stalled peace process is the reason he will not run for a second term in office.

"The objective is to achieve a final status solution to the Palestinian cause, but the matter is still held up until now and that is why I do not want to run for a second term," the Palestinian leader said while visiting Saudi Arabia.

Last month, Abbas gave a televised speech in which he said he would not seek reelection in polls scheduled Jan 24.

Ramallah, Dec 15 : Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas reiterated Tuesday his determination not to seek re-election to the presidency, and said he had other options, which he would announce at a later date.

"I will not run again for the presidency in any upcoming presidential elections," the president told the 129-member Palestine Liberation Organisation Central Council meeting in Ramallah, repeating an announcement originally made Nov 5.

Buenos Aires, Nov 25 - Palestinian National Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has said US President Barack Obama "is doing nothing for the peace process" in the Middle East.

"For now he is doing nothing, but he has invited us to revive the peace process. I hope that in the future he can play a more important role," Abbas said in an interview published Tuesday by the Argentine daily Clarin.

Instead, Abbas again called upon Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva to take a more active role as mediator in the Middle East.

Ramallah  - Members of Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah party staged demonstrations Friday, urging the Palestinian president to run for a second term, while the rival Hamas movement quickly declared his announcement of the previous night that he would not an admission of "failure."

Fatah organized marches after Friday's prayers in Ramallah and a number of other West Bank towns, in which hundreds of supporters participated, calling on the moderate Palestinian president to reverse his decision to seek re-election.

The movement said it was planning larger rallies later in the weekend or next week.

Ramallah - Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas Saturday defended his decision to hold national elections on January 24 saying it was a constitutional requirement.

Abbas issued a decree on Friday night declaring presidential and legislative elections in January to be held in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip.

The mandate of the present legislative council, dominated by the Islamist movement Hamas, which is strongly opposed to holding election in January, ends its four-year term on January 24.

Cairo  - Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said Tuesday that Hamas had "put obstacles in the path of the reconciliation" between rival Palestinian factions.

Abbas was speaking to reporters after meeting with Egyptian President Hosny Mubarak in Cairo. Abbas' Fatah faction, which controls Palestinian-administered territories of the West Bank, last Wednesday unilaterally signed an Egyptian-brokered compromise agreement to end the two-year-old split with Hamas.

Ramallah  - Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas slammed Sunday the Islamic Hamas movement for delaying an inter-Palestinian reconciliation pact that was due to be signed in Cairo this month and would have ended internecine tensions.

In a televised speech, he accused Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, of using a United Nations report on last winter's Israeli offensive in the salient as an excuse to avoid signing the deal.

Jerusalem - Israel is considering ways of strengthening Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, and may agree to begin talks on a permanent solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict rather than negotiate an interim agreement, Israel Radio reported Saturday.

Quoting an unnamed senior official, the radio said Israel was examining allowing more freedom of movement to Palestinians in the West Bank, removing roadblocks, and allowing increased municipal building in Ramallah.

Ramallah/Tel Aviv  - Positions between the Palestinians and Israel remained intractable Friday despite the surprise naming of US President Barack Obama as the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize recipient.

During a meeting with Obama's Middle East representative George Mitchell, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas rejected any concessions to get the peace talks going again.

Cairo  - Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said Saturday that he believes recent efforts to revive the Middle East peace process have now failed, after US envoy George Mitchell left the region without progress.

Speaking after a meeting with Egyptian President Hosny Mubarak in Cairo, Abbas said "I believe the road is blocked now. No compromise was achieved."

Abbas has made a total freeze on Israeli construction in the West Bank a condition for meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who took office nearly six months ago.

Amman - Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said Thursday the US administration of President Barack Obama was still adamant in its demand that Israel completely halts the building of settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories as a pre-condition for the resumption of peace talks with Israel.

"We did not feel any retraction in the US attitude in this respect," Abbas told reporters after talks with Jordan's King Abdullah II.

Ramallah - An estimated 52 per cent of Palestinians would vote for Palestinian President and Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas if elections were held today, compared to 38 per cent for the Islamist Hamas leader Ismail Haniyah, a poll released Monday indicated.

Reflecting the growth in popularity of the secular Fatah movement and its leader Abbas after its successful conference which ended past week, the poll also found that Fatah's popularity has risen three points, to 44 per cent, since the last survey three months ago.

Ramallah - The official list published Saturday of winners in elections to the Revolutionary Council of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah movement, included 67-year-old Uri Davis, a Jerusalem-born Israeli Jew.

He is the first Jew to become a member of the liberation movement established in 1958 with the goal of liberating Palestinian from Israeli occupation.

Ramallah - Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah movement added fresh blood to its decision-making bodies with the election of second-generation members to its Revolutionary Council, according to the official list announced Saturday.

Fatah had opened its sixth congress, the first in 20 years, in the West Bank city of Bethlehem on August 4, and after a week of deliberations, over 2,000 delegates voted for

Gaza City - Eleven senior leaders from the Gaza Strip of President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah party resigned in protest Wednesday at the election process and results of their movement's top decision- making body.

The 11 members of Fatah's Highest Committee in the Gaza Strip complained that Fatah members from the Gaza Strip are under- represented in the newly-elected, 23- member Central Committee.

Bethlehem, West Bank - Delegates at the convention of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah party approved the organization's political platform Sunday, including a clause reserving the right of resistance against the Israeli occupation.

The gathering in the West Bank town of Bethlehem, was also expected Sunday to vote for a new central committee and a new revolutionary council, although it was possible the ballot would be delayed until Monday.

Gaza - Security forces of the Gaza-ruling Islamic Hamas movement held several senior leaders of President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah party in the Gaza Strip for several hours, senior Fatah leaders said Friday in Gaza.

They said it happened shortly after the group's central committee member Nabil Shaath announced that around 400 Gaza Fatah party congress members could vote for their new leadership by telephone.