Middle East: Taking office at the head of an emergency cabinet, Mr Ahmed Korei, the new Palestinian Authority Prime Minister, yesterday offered to begin immediate negotiations with the Israeli government for an intifada truce.
Speaking just two days after an Islamic Jihad suicide bomber killed 19 Israelis in an attack at a Haifa restaurant, he stressed that he did not envisage a repeat of the failed three-month "hudna" declared by most Palestinian factions early last summer, and ruptured after six weeks, but rather "a comprehensive ceasefire that will not be temporary".
There was no immediate official response from the Israeli government, whose members were yesterday marking the Yom Kippur fast day.
However, Israel's Prime Minister, Mr Ariel Sharon, has met with Mr Korei (also known as Abu Ala) many times, and has not ruled out negotiations with him.
Mr Korei's truce-talk offer was accompanied, however, by the declaration that he did not intend to aggressively confront Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other extremist groups - as Israel and the United States have long urged. Their pressure for such action is certain to mount in the coming days following Saturday's bombing.
"We will not confront; we will not go for a civil war," Mr Korei told the Associated Press. "It's not in the interest of our people, and it's not in the interest of the peace process."
While he was committed to "the concept" of the internationally-backed "road map" peace plan, which requires the PA to dismantle extremist groups, Mr Korei said he was "not a slave to the words".
"We accepted the road map. We will implement it. But I will not receive instructions. I will not listen to the Americans, I will listen to our national right."
He said he would work for the establishment of an independent Palestinian state throughout the West Bank and Gaza Strip, with East Jerusalem as its capital, by the 2005 target date set out in the "road map."
The former speaker of the Palestinian parliament and a key architect of the collapsed Oslo peace accords, Mr Korei is the second PA premier, succeeding Mr Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) who resigned a month ago in protest at Israeli breaches of the "road map" process and having lost an internal power struggle with the PA President, Mr Yasser Arafat.
Mr Korei's appointment was rushed through by Mr Arafat's emergency decree on Sunday night, and is to be ratified by the parliament tomorrow.
Mr Arafat apparently feared that, in the wake of the Haifa blast, the Israeli government might carry out its threat to "remove" him, and therefore sought to bolster international support by confirming Mr Korei as Prime Minister.
Instead, however, Israel chose to respond to the bombing with an air raid on what it said was a training facility used by Islamic Jihad north-west of the Syrian capital Damascus. Nevertheless, Israeli leaders are holding further talks, and the idea of expelling Mr Arafat is still an option.
There has been some speculation here in recent days that Mr Arafat's health is failing. He looked drawn and hesitant on Sunday when he appeared before cameras to issue an English-language condemnation of the Haifa bombing.