Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas denied on Tuesday that he has agreed with Hamas on naming academic Mohammed Shbeir as the prime minister of a planned national unity government.
"There are no specific names for who will head the (Palestinian) prime ministry but several names, and so far no decision has been made on a specific person," Abbas said after talks with King Abdullah II in the Jordanian capital.
Sources in Abbas's Fatah party and the ruling Islamic movement Hamas said Sunday they had agreed on Mohammed Shbeir, a clinical biologist and former president of the Islamic University, as the next premier.
Shbeir is considered close to Hamas but never joined the party.
Abbas, who briefed the Jordanian monarch on efforts to set up a Palestinian unity government, described Shbeir as "a well-known figure" but stressed that names of other candidates were also being discussed, a court statement said.
The moderate Palestinian Authority president, Abbas, and Islamist prime minister Ismail Haniya held intensive talks in Gaza City last week.
"Hamas proposed three names all of which were acceptable to president Abbas and Hamas indicated that their favoured choice was Mohammed Shbeir," an Abbas aide said.
The head of Hamas's majority faction in parliament, Khalil al-Hayya, had said the agreement on a compromise premier came "after a deal" on the new administration's programme.
But the new unity cabinet will not recognise Israel, a chief condition for resuming Western aid to the government, a top official with Hamas said Tuesday.
"The next government was not asked to recognise Israel and it will not do so," Mussa Abu Marzuk, the second-in-command of Hamas's political wing based in Damascus, told Palestinian press agency Ramattan.