CAIRO, June 14 (Reuters)
CAIRO, June 14 (Reuters)
Palestinian officials said on Tuesday they would be ready to unveil a new unity government at a meeting between Palestinian President and Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal in Cairo next week.
Leaders from the two factions met for several hours in Cairo on Tuesday to discuss forming the new government, which Palestinians see as crucial for efforts to seek statehood in September.
Palestinian officials said the talks, headed by Fatah Central Committee member Azzam al-Ahmed and Hamas’s deputy politburo head Mousa Abu Marzook, agreed on the release of prisoners held by the two factions and made progress on forming a new government, but had yet to agree on a prime minister.
“The prime minister’s name and those of the ministers will be announced before the people on Tuesday (next week),” Meshaal’s deputy, Mousa Abu Marzook, told Reuters in an interview.
He said Abbas and Meshaal would be in Cairo to announce the new government.
Under a reconciliation accord reached in April, the rival factions agreed to form a government of technocrats, consisting of ministers without party affiliations, to prepare for general elections within a year.
Fatah nominated Salam Fayyad, an internationally respected former World Bank economist who heads the Palestinian government in the West Bank city of Ramallah, for the post of prime minister, but Hamas rejected Fayyad’s nomination.
Fayyad supporters say his standing abroad was an asset for the Palestinians in ensuring the continued flow of international aid and in pursuing a bid for U.N. recognition of Palestinian statehood, expected in September.
Excerpted from Reuters
