Mahmud Abbas accepts PA prime minister resignation

Acting Palestinian Authority (PA) Chief Mahmoud Abbas has accepted the resignation of his selected Prime Minister Salam Fayyad after a weeks-long row.

“Fayyad met Abbas for half an hour in the president’s headquarters in Ramallah in the West Bank and officially handed him his written resignation,” AFP quoted a PA official as saying.

Abbas tasked Fayyad with the role of caretaker of the current cabinet until a new prime minister is appointed, another official said.

The resignation came in the wake of mounting criticism of Fayyad’s economic policies by Abbas’s Fatah party, and despite Washington’s lobbying for the US-graduate to stay in office.

US Secretary of State John Kerry reportedly went as far to telephone Abbas late on Friday to press him to find common ground with his prime minister.

The Gaza-based Hamas movement, which won the 2006 general elections but was later pushed aside by rival Fatah, said the resignation was a result of divisions within Fatah and held it accountable for the poor economic condition.

“Fayyad left the government after riddling our people with debt, and Fatah must assume responsibility because it imposed him from the start,” Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said.