RAMALLAH: President Mahmud Abbas said on Monday that a new Palestinian government will be formed within 48 hours, to replace the current cabinet headed by Salam Fayyad.

'A new government will be formed within the next 48 hours,' Abbas told a meeting of his secular Fatah party.

According to Palestinian officials, Abbas will once again ask Fayyad to form the new government that will not include the Hamas movement.

Fayyad, a US-educated economist widely respected in the West, announced on April 1 that he would remain in office until the end of unity talks between Hamas and Fatah in Egypt.

The two factions have been bitterly divided ever since the Islamists seized power in the Gaza Strip in June 2007 after a week of deadly clashes, booting out supporters of the rival party headed by Abbas.

The two sides have held several rounds of talks in Egypt trying to cobble together a unity government, but negotiations were adjourned last month to May 16.

Fayyad, a politically independent former World Bank economist who has won praise from Israeli and Western leaders for his economic reforms, was appointed premier after Hamas drove Abbas's secular Fatah party from Gaza.