Taiwan leader Ma Ying-jeou announced Wednesday afternoon that he would run for chairman of the ruling Kuomintang (KMT) in Taiwan.

Ma, who served the chairmanship between August 2005 and February 2007, told press his new big political move, just after a top-level KMT meeting.

KMT chairman Wu Poh-hsiung said he would not run for KMT chairman after he learnt Taiwan leader Ma Ying-jeou had the intention to run for it.

The KMT is scheduled to elect a new chairman on July 26. Potential candidates are required to submit their applications from June 15 to 16.

Fan Liqing, a spokeswoman of the State Council Taiwan Affairs Office, offered no comment on the coming KMT chairman election at an unrelated press briefing Wednesday morning in Beijing.

Fan, however, said, "The KMT and the Communist Party of China, via party-to-party exchange mechanism, conducted in past years a lot of fruitful activities which dynamically stimulated the peaceful development of cross-Straits relations."

"We believe that the exchange mechanism would further play an important and active role," Fan said.

(Xinhua News Agency June 10, 2009)