Special report: Hamas forming Palestinian govt

    RAMALLAH, March 25 (Xinhua) -- Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said in a letter he addressed to Prime Minister-designate Ismail Haneya that he approved new Hamas-led cabinet, a senior Palestinian official announced on Saturday.

    Abbas asked Prime Minister-designate Haneya to present his cabinet and its platform to the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) for a confidence vote, Tayeb Abdel Rahim, an aide to Abbas, told a news conference in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

    Abbas, who is in Jordan, is scheduled later Saturday to head to Egypt to meet with Egyptian leaders before going to the Sudanese capital of Khartoum to attend the annual Arab summit next Tuesday.

    Abdel Rahim told reporters that Haneya met with Abbas' office chief of staff in Gaza Adnan al-Husseini and received Abbas' official letter.

    Hamas sources said that Haneya is intending to present his cabinet to the PLC, where Hamas has overwhelming majority, to get its confidence on Monday.

    "After he had carefully studied the coming cabinet's platform, President Abbas decided to write to Haneya telling him to go to the parliament and present it to its members to get their confidence," said Abdel Rahim.

    However, Abbas was concerned about the new government's program.

    "Abbas expressed his sorrow that the cabinet ignored the principles Abbas stressed in his letter of commission," Abdel Rahim said Abbas, who asked Haneya to form the new cabinet on Feb. 21 following Hamas victory in the Jan. 25 parliamentary elections, urged Hamas to be committed to the principle of seeking negotiated solution to the conflict with Israel.

    "The letter to Haneya assured that the democratic choice of the Palestinian people can never be a coup on the legal and political commitments of the Palestinian Authority," Abdel Rahim said.

    Hamas failed to form a coalition government as the radical Islamic group rebuffed demands by Fatah and other factions in the PLC to respect peace deals signed with Israel and recognize Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), headed by Abbas, as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people.

    The PLO executive committee rejected the new cabinet's platform on Wednesday after Hamas declined to do so. Enditem