Yasser Abed Rabbo, the Secretary-General of Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Executive Committee, said that Erekat submitted his resignation during a meeting of decision-making body headed by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in West Bank city of Ramallah on Saturday.

Abed Rabbo did not confirm if the executive committee accepted Erekat's resignation who led or participated in the Israeli- Palestinian peace talks since the Madrid conference in 1991.

On January, Al-Jazeera satellite published documents about the peace talks between the Palestinian Authority and Israel.

The documents revealed that Palestinian negotiators have been willing to give Israel control over Jewish areas of the Jerusalem’s Old City; let Israel annex areas of East Jerusalem claimed by Palestinians as part of their future capital; and severely limit the number of Palestinian refugees allowed to return.

They documents also showed details about security cooperation between the two sides.

Abed Rabbo said that the PLO's Executive Committee received a report on Saturday on how Al-Jazeera got the documents. At the beginning of the revelations, Erekat said he was responsible for the leaks.

Erekat said then that US citizen Clayton Swisher who worked for the US Foreign Office and who now works at Al-Jazeera, and Alastair Crooke, a British citizen who once served as the EU's security coordinator on the settlements, are responsible for the leaks.

The chief negotiator said he was assuming “responsibility for the theft of documents from his office” that he said had been “deliberately” tampered with.

Last month, Erakat accused Al-Jazeera of taking part in a campaign to overthrow Abbas’s Palestinian Authority (PA) after the Doha-based channel began to release a cache of confidential documents known as “The Palestine Papers.”

The files expose concessions to Israel in 10 years of secret peace talks, embarrassing and angering Abbas’s leadership. Erakat in January accused Al-Jazeera of trying to discredit the peace process and provoke a revolt.

His decision to resign “shows that the leaked documents were authentic,” Hamas’s Barhum said, urging the PLO to halt all negotiations with Israel.

Erakat has pointed to a possible US-Israeli effort to topple the PA because of its refusal to take part in US-brokered direct peace talks unless the Jewish state halts West Bank settlement construction.

The talks have been suspended since September.

The leaked files allege that Palestinian negotiators offered unprecedented concessions during peace negotiations, including on the ultra-sensitive subjects of Jerusalem and refugees, with nothing in return from Israel.

They also show PA members closely cooperating with Israel in its fight against Hamas.