Profile: Qurei, Palestine's new PM 　　

　　BEIJING, Sept. 11 (Xinhua) -- Ahmed Qurei, speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council, said on Wednesday that he had officially accepted the post of prime minister and would soon forma new cabinet.

　　Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat had nominated Qurei, also known as Abu Ala, for the post over the weekend after Mahmoud Abbas resigned as prime minister.

　　Born in 1937 in Abu Dis, a small town near Jerusalem, Qurei worked for years in the Saudi Arabia-based Arab Bank before movingon to join Arafat's Fatah movement.

　　Qurei was one of the founders of the Fatah faction in the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). He was mainly in charge of Fatah's finance from 1968 to 1994 and set up a special organization to assist the families of Palestinian martyrs.

　　Also as a prominent industrialist, he first established his fortune in Lebanon and extended his businesses around the world. He set up many factories, service companies and farms.

　　Palestine and Israel started to engage in direct contacts in January 1993 after the Knesset of Israel lifted a ban on engagement with the PLO.

　　Qurei had long been the key negotiator in secret talks with Israelis in Oslo that led to signing the 1993 Washington interim peace accords which set the stage for the creation of the Palestinian Authority.

　　He became economy and trade minister following the Palestinian self-rule in 1994. He had been speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council since 1996.

　　As a figure close to Arafat, Qurei backs Arafat's internal and foreign policies. He has a high prestige among Palestinians. Enditem