Palestinian leader threatens to quit

Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia is said to have threatened to quit today after a row with Yasser Arafat.

The new premier suffered a severe blow when MPs failed to vote on his Cabinet, casting doubt on his future and the fate of his plan to reach a comprehensive truce with Israel.

In a heated closed-door meeting in the West Bank town of Ramallah with Palestinian leader Arafat, Qureia suggested he no longer wanted to be prime minister, just four days after taking office, officials said.

Arafat’s spokesman said there were ”serious differences” but denied Qureia had offered to resigned.

During the meeting with Arafat and the Fatah leadership, an exasperated Qureia told the Palestinian leader, “Just relieve me of this job,” according to officials who were present.

Qureia’s success is key to efforts to salvage the stalled US backed “road map” peace plan, which outlines a path to ending three years of violence and a Palestinian state by 2005.

His predecessor, Mahmoud Abbas, resigned in September after just four months in the job, squeezed between Israel’s demand he end ongoing violence and crack down on militants and Arafat’s refusal to give up any power.

Violence continued in the West Bank when a suicide bomber detonated explosives at an Israeli army base, killing himself and injuring two Israeli soldiers and a Palestinian.

The Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades claimed responsibility for the attack and identified the bomber as Ahmed Safadi, an 18-year-old high school student from the village of Oref south of Nablus.

The bomber walked up to an office at an Israeli army base near the West Bank town of Tulkarem where Palestinians apply for humanitarian permits to cross roadblocks and blew himself up, the army said.

The bombing came after Israel ordered a special call-up of four reserve battalions to patrol the West Bank and Gaza.

Qureia has pledged to work to end the violence, but today’s public embarrassment seemed to bode ill for his chances of survival.

As dozens of Palestinian MPs and hundreds of officials waited for nearly 90 minutes for the expected vote on Qureia’s Cabinet, backdoor wrangling continued among members of Arafat’s Fatah faction about the size and the makeup of the government.

Unable to agree on whether to confirm the eight-person emergency Cabinet appointed by Arafat on Sunday, the officials abruptly cancelled the vote.

“Everyone has his own script and so we feel that we need more time. We are sorry for troubling you,” Deputy Parliament Speaker Abraham Abu Najar told the waiting MPs.

The vote was tentatively rescheduled for Saturday. Until then, the Cabinet remains a temporary one that officials say can rule for a month only.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon faced his own Cabinet troubles with the National Religious Party threatening to walk out of his centre-right government over a religious dispute.

While a decision by the hawkish, six-strong NRP faction to pull out of Sharon’s 68 seat coalition would still leave the prime minister with a slim majority in the 120-seat parliament.