Jordan's King Abdullah II named a new technocrat prime minister on Thursday after the current cabinet stepped down following Teusday's parliamentary election, a senior official said.
The king officially designated Nader Dahabi to form a new cabinet after prime minister Marouf Bakhit, who had presided over the government since November 2005, submitted his resignation, the official told AFP. "The new government will be announced Sunday and its members will be sworn in before the king," the official added.
Dahabi, 61, currently head of a special economic zone in the Red Sea port of Aqaba, served as transport minister from 2001 to 2003. He had headed Royal Jordanian airlines from 1994 to 2001, and has also served in the air force.
The development took place after the king returned from a three-way summit with President Hosni Mubarak and Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh ahead of a US meeting on Middle East peace next week.
During the discussion, Mubarak and the king affirmed their "full support to the Palestinian position that calls for discussing the issues of final solution which will lead to establishing an independent and livable Palestinian state within a timetable," Petra news agency reported.
The Jordanian-Egyptian-Palestinian trilateral summit, which was held concurrently with meeting of the Arab Foreign Ministers for the same purpose, affirmed the "necessity of coordinating the Arab stands," the news agency added.
The Jordanian king urged Israel to enter into serious negotiations and "to adopt positive attitudes that help to reach a lasting and comprehensive peace in the region, stressing the importance of dealing with the Syrian and Lebanese tracks, especially the issue of the occupied Golan."
© 2007 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
