Qureia will stay as prime minister

JERUSALEM – Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia on Tuesday grudgingly gave in to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat’s demand that he stay in his post, briefly easing the political crisis that’s gripped the Palestinian Authority since Qureia submitted his resignation Saturday.

But the tension between the two remained, with Qureia insisting his would remain a “caretaker government” and that his plan to resign would stand unless Arafat ceded control over Palestinian security services, a step that Qureia said was needed to restore law and order in the Gaza Strip.

It’s the strongest challenge yet to Arafat’s authority. A younger generation is battling to take power from the aging leader’s old guard as Israel prepares to withdraw settlers and soldiers from predominantly Palestinian Gaza by the end of 2005.

Palestinian Labor Minister Ghassan Khatib complained that the fighting among Palestinians was obscuring the real threat to the Palestinian Authority: Israel’s military clampdown on Palestinian territories and the economic privation that’s threatening 4 million Palestinians. “This (crisis) is like a competition between people who want to control a prison,” he said Tuesday night.

As Qureia, his ministers and Arafat met at Arafat’s shattered West Bank compound Tuesday, Arafat again refused to offer any concessions, prompting a ministerial team to postpone an afternoon trip to Gaza that was intended to calm a simmering rebellion there.

“When the interior minister, who is supposed to be in charge of security, isn’t even authorized to deal with security, what is a committee going to be able to do?” asked Qadoura Fares, a minister without portfolio. “The crisis is not over.”

U.S. officials were also unimpressed, with Deputy Assistant Secretary of State David M. Satterfield describing the situation as a “clash of personalities” unlikely to bring about the changes in Palestinian leadership needed to restart peace negotiations with Israel.