March 8, 2003	Saturday	Muharram 4, 1424

GAZA, March 7: Palestinian President Yasser Arafat on Friday asked Mahmoud Abbas — who goes by the nom de guerre Abu Mazen and has kept a back-channel open to Israeli leaders during the past 29 months of fighting — to be prime minister, a post international peace mediators want created.

Mr Abbas, a relative moderate and the PLO’s second-in-command, said he was willing to become the first Palestinian prime minister only if the post carried real authority.

Arafat has been under intense pressure from the United States and the European Union to reform the Palestinian Authority and appoint a powerful prime minister to take over day-to-day running of his government.

The process of establishing the post of prime minister was to begin on Saturday at a meeting of the PLO’s Central Council in the West Bank city of Ramallah, to be followed by the convening on Monday of the Palestinian parliament.—Reuters