07 March 2005

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is expected to give a major policy speech Monday before the Palestinian Parliament after MPs elect a new speaker, officials said Sunday.

"Today we finished the ninth term of Parliament and according to our Constitution we have to elect a new speaker, the first and second deputies, and a secretary general of the council," deputy speaker Hassan Khreisheh told AFP.

After the vote to elect a new speaker - which should be finalized Monday - Abbas will address MPs fresh from a conference in London where he won international support for an ambitious package of political, economic and security reforms.

Among those in the running for the top four parliamentary jobs are ministers who lost their portfolios when Prime Minister Ahmed Qorei formed a new Cabinet last month, said parliamentary sources.

Outgoing parliamentary Speaker Rawhi Fattouh was briefly acting head of the Palestinian Authority following the death in November of the late Yasser Arafat until Abbas was elected his successor in January.

Abbas is also due to meet dozens of members of his mainstream Fatah party who have resigned, in a bid to defuse a row over the old guard's grip on power, officials said Sunday.

"President Abu Mazen will meet in the next 24 hours the members of Fatah who resigned to discuss the problems within Fatah," said Tayeb Abdel-Rahim, a member of the Fatah central committee.

On Saturday, more than 100 Fatah members published a letter slamming the resignation of a swathe of party officials a day earlier, calling for unity within the movement, which was co-founded by Abbas and Arafat The letter said Friday's resignation of 18 officials from the faction's "mobilization and organization office" was a dangerous move at a time of great change within the Palestinian leadership following Arafat's death.

Friday's resignations came after a disagreement between the officials and the chairman of the mobilization office, Hani al-Hassan, a former close aide to the late Arafat.

The officials who resigned argued that Fatah leaders from the old guard - those who returned from exile with Arafat when the PA was set up in 1994 - were sidelining new talent ahead of legislative elections in July.

In a separate announcement, Abbas said the lawlessness in West Bank cities will continue until Israel hands control of them to Palestinian forces. He called on Israel to return to the transfer talks that were suspended after a Tel Aviv suicide bombing.

Israel had promised to hand over five cities following a Feb. 8 cease-fire declaration but suspended talks after a Palestinian suicide bomber killed five Israelis at a Tel Aviv night club last weekend.

"We have no control on the ground," Abbas told a news conference Saturday in Ramallah.

But Israeli officials said there would be no more talks until the Palestinians find those behind the Feb. 25 Tel Aviv bombing, and accused Abbas of dragging his feet.

In another news conference Sunday, Palestinian civil affairs minister Mohammed Dahlan urged Israel for the second time in less than a week to do more to ease Palestinian movement in the Occupied Territories.

"Until now, Israel has offered nothing positive to the Palestinian people. Therefore the coming days will be testing," he said, touring the industrial area around Karni, east of Gaza City.

"I recognize that Israel needs security, but Israeli security procedures should not destroy the Palestinian economy," Dahlan told reporters, branding Israeli checkpoints "unrealistic, illogical and unacceptable."

In a separate announcement Sunday, Israeli government sources said Prime Minister Ariel Sharon will meet U.S. President George W. Bush in Washington on April 12 for talks on the peace process.

Palestinian officials have already said that Abbas, a moderate who declared a cease-fire with Sharon last month, will see Bush at the White House next month. - Agencies