Palestinian speaker agrees to become premier
Palestinian parliament speaker Ahmed Qureia has agreed in principle to take over as prime minister, sources close to him said today.
But, following the resignation of Mahmoud Abbas, it remained unclear if Israel would agree to deal with the new leader.
Israeli leaders have said they will not negotiate with any new government controlled or hand-picked by Yasser Arafat and repeated their threat to expel the Palestinian leader from the region.
They have not publicly commented on Qureia’s nomination. Israeli officials have said privately they would have liked to see Palestinian Finance Minister Salam Fayad in the job.
Arafat asked Qureia – a moderate who helped cobble together the 1993 Oslo accord between Israel and the PLO – to form a new government yesterday shortly after his nomination was confirmed by top officials of the ruling Fatah party and the PLO.
Qureia, widely known as Abu Ala, has agreed in principle to serve as prime minister, sources close to him said today. However, he has not yet given a formal response.
Abbas said he was quitting after Arafat refused to grant him more power over the Palestinian security services, capping four months of wrangling between the two.
Qureia was considered a top candidate because he has led past negotiations and has credibility with the Israelis.
Abbas’ departure dealt a serious blow to the US backed ”road map” plan for establishing a Palestinian state by 2005.
Israel and the United States have refused to deal with Arafat, whom they accuse of fomenting terrorism, and made Abbas, a critic of terror attacks against Israelis, their partner in peace efforts.
Even as the Palestinians were scrambling to resolve their political crisis, momentum appeared to be growing in Israel for expelling Arafat, with Cabinet ministers arguing that Abbas’ resignation proved the 74-year-old Palestinian leader is the main impediment to efforts to end three years of violence.
“As long as Arafat is in the region, he won’t let any other leader develop,” said Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom.
The United States has blocked Arafat’s expulsion in the past, and security advisers to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon have warned that Arafat could do more harm to Israel abroad than by remaining trapped at his West Bank headquarters in Ramallah.
Israeli helicopters, meanwhile, launched a missile strike on a Gaza Strip house that the army said was being used by the militant group Hamas to store weapons, wounding 11 people, including three children.
The army said it was targeting explosives and firearms stored there.
Also in Gaza, Israeli soldiers killd an armed Palestinian who was apparently planning to infiltrate a Jewish settlement.
The Palestinian – dressed in Israeli army fatigues and armed with a sub-machine-gun, ammunition clips and hand grenades – fired back at the soldiers who were manning an outpost, said Colonel Yossi Haddad, adding that no Israeli troops were injured.
