Newly-appointed Palestinian premier submits resignation
Iran Press TV
Fri Jun 21, 2013 10:45AM GMT
Palestinian Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah has submitted his resignation to Palestinian Authority Chief Mahmoud Abbas two weeks after taking office.
A Palestinian official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Thursday that Hamdallah made the unexpected move due to a “dispute over his powers.”
According to a post on Hamdallah's Facebook page, the new premier made the decision following “outside interferences in his powers and duties.”
Nabil Abu Rdeneh, an advisor to the PA chief, said Abbas had received the resignation and would consider it.
Hamdallah is a British-educated professor of linguistics who has been president of al-Najah University in the occupied West Bank since 1998.
Analysts believe that Hamdallah’s offer to quit his post signals disarray within the Palestinian Authority.
Following the announcement, Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said, “Hamdallah's resignation indicates that unilateral steps remain weak, are useless and do not resolve the internal Palestinian problem ... The solution is not in having many governments. It is in the implementing the reconciliation agreement.”
On June 6, Hamdallah replaced Salam Fayyad who resigned in April after a weeks-long row with Abbas's Fatah party over his economic policies.
The new prime minister’s government was expected to remain in office until mid-August, when the Fatah party and the Gaza-based Hamas movement are due to complete long-delayed negotiations to form a unity government of technocrats, and then prepare for new presidential and parliamentary elections.
The Hamas movement, which won the 2006 general elections but was later pushed aside by rival Fatah, said the appointment of a new prime minister without their consultation was not a legal move.
MKA/KA
|
NEWSLETTER
|
| Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list |
|
|
|
