BICOM

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad have reached an agreement on the formation of a new Palestinian cabinet, Palestinian sources said Tuesday.

The new cabinet will be headed by Fayyad and will consist of 20 ministers, the London-based Al-Quds Al- Arabi reports this morning. Between six and seven new ministers are expected to join the new cabinet, they added.

The agreement ends weeks of tension between Abbas and Fayyad over the formation of a new cabinet as well as other issues, including Fayyad’s refusal to deliver a letter from Abbas to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu last month.

However, Abbas and Fayyad have yet to reach an agreement on the position of PA Foreign Minister. While Abbas insists on keeping current Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki in his position, Fayyad wants him out of the cabinet. “The dispute between Abbas and Fayyad over the foreign ministry is very big,” one source told Al-Quds Al-Arabi. “Maliki will be a hot and hard battle, but Fayyad will lose,” the source said.

The source also claimed that the Abbas-Fayyad agreement calls for appointing Nabil Qassis, former head of Bir Zeit University, as finance minister. The finance ministry has been in the hands of Fayyad since the establishment of the West Bank government more than three years ago. Fayyad will now only hold the position of prime minister in the cabinet. In addition, a top Fatah official will be appointed as deputy prime minister.

The formation of a new PA cabinet in the West Bank is seen as an admission of the failure of Fatah to establish a unity government with Hamas. Earlier this year, Abbas and Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal signed an agreement in Qatar to form a unity government. However, the agreement, like previous accords between the two parties, was never implemented due to the wide gap between the two sides.