Parliamentary election to be held in all Palestinian territories: Abbas

The Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas announced on Wednesday that the Palestinian parliamentary elections will be held in all the Palestinian territories, said the Palestinian state-run news agency WAFA.

Abbas' announcement was made when he met with a high-ranking Russian delegation at his office in the city of Ramallah, said the report, adding that the Russian delegation included high-ranking diplomats in the Russian Foreign Ministry.

The Palestinian parliamentary election will be held in East Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip to enable the Palestinian citizens to elect their representatives throughout the ballots, said Abbas.

"The Palestinian leadership is keen to achieve the national Palestinian unity by implementing what had been agreed upon in Cairo in 2017," said Abbas, adding that "the Palestinian leadership is committed to its implementation."

In late December, Abbas announced that the Palestinian Constitutional Court had decided to dissolve the inoperative Palestinian parliament, better known as the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC).

The court had also called for holding new parliamentary election in the Palestinian territories after six months of dissolving the parliament. The move was strongly opposed by the Islamic Hamas movement and other minor factions in the Gaza Strip.

Over the past two weeks, Abbas held several meetings with officials in the Palestinian Central Elections Commission, where he asked them to start immediately their contacts and consultations on holding the parliamentary elections in the Palestinian territories.

The PLC became inoperative since the beginning of the internal Palestinian division between Hamas and Abbas Fatah movement in 2007 after Hamas had violently seized control of the Gaza Strip and routed Abbas security forces.

The last parliamentary election was held in the Palestinian territories in January 2006, where Hamas movement had overwhelmingly won most of the parliament's seats and ousted Abbas' Fatah movement from the council.

Meanwhile, Abbas expressed to the Russian delegation that the Palestinian leadership opposes and rejects the new U.S. peace plan.

Ties between the Palestinian Authority and the U.S. administration had been severed since U.S. President Donald Trump's declared in December 2017 that Jerusalem is the capital of the state of Israel and moved his country's embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.