MIDDLE EAST: Under strong international pressure, Palestinian Authority President Mr Yasser Arafat yesterday announced he was ready to appoint a prime minister - a key demand of the United States, the European Union and Israel - but he did not give a date for the appointment, nor any indication of how much power he was prepared to devolve, writes Peter Hirschberg in Jerusalem.
"I have decided to appoint a prime minister," Mr Arafat told reporters at his Ramallah headquarters, adding that he planned to immediately convene the Palestinian Legislative Council and the PLO's Central Council to approve the step. The Palestinian leader did not say when these bodies would meet, nor did he suggest who might become prime minister.
Mr Arafat made his announcement after a meeting with some members of the "Quartet" - made up of the US, EU, UN and Russia - which has been urging him to accede to the demand for a prime minister to take over much of the day-to-day running of the Palestinian Authority.
The United Nations envoy to the Middle East, Mr Terje Roed Larsen, who met the Palestinian leader, said Mr Arafat had agreed to make the appointment "immediately, which must mean within the next few days." Western diplomats, who hope the move will help kick-start the shattered peace process, were quoted as saying that the Quartet wanted a timetable for naming a prime minister from Mr Arafat by Sunday, and were pushing for the appointment to be made before a possible US strike on Iraq.
There was no official Israeli reaction to the news, and sources close to the Prime Minister, Mr Ariel Sharon, said the government was adopting a wait-and-see approach. Mr Sharon, who has declared Mr Arafat "irrelevant" and wants to sideline him, views the appointment of a prime minister with real powers as a way to achieve this goal.
An ally of Mr Sharon, Jerusalem mayor Mr Ehud Olmert, said the reason for appointing a prime minister was so that the Palestinian leader would be "removed and the prime minister will take over, so I think that it is too early to determine the significance of Arafat's statement."
It is unclear, however, how much power Mr Arafat is prepared to relinquish. A Palestinian minister, Mr Saeb Erekat, made it clear that the new prime minister would report directly to Mr Arafat.
Meanwhile in Gaza, Palestinian sources said two youths were killed yesterday when the Israeli army blew up a tunnel used to smuggle weapons from Egypt into the Strip. The army insisted it had checked the tunnel before demolishing it, and found no one.