JERUSALEM — President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority appointed the president of a large West Bank university to serve as his next prime minister on Sunday, replacing Salam Fayyad, who resigned in mid-April.
The appointment of Rami Hamdallah, 54, a professor with no previous experience in government, ended a leadership vacuum created by Fayyad’s resignation over internal differences. Fayyad, an internationally respected economist, had agreed to stay on as a caretaker prime minister.
In the long term, however, the political outlook for the Palestinian Authority remained hazy.
In announcing the appointment, the official Palestinian news agency, Wafa, said that Abbas remained committed to the reconciliation agreements his Fatah Party has signed with Hamas, the Islamist militant group that controls Gaza, and that he was eager to stick to the timetable agreed upon in Cairo.
The two sides met in the Egyptian capital last month and agreed to form a technocratic unity government within three months to pave the way for elections.
Palestinian officials and analysts said the Cairo timetable aimed for the formation of a unity government by sometime in August, while the Wafa announcement on Sunday did not specify any deadlines, leaving Abbas some leeway.
But Fatah and Hamas have failed to carry out previous accords. Hamas is wary of elections while Abbas has his relations with Israel and the West to consider.
Secretary of State John Kerry is in the midst of an intensive effort to restart Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations. Israel has said that a Palestinian unity government with Hamas, which does not recognize Israel’s right to exist, would contradict peace efforts.
Hamdallah has not played a prominent role in Palestinian politics and is better known as a technocrat, though Palestinian insiders described him as being close to Fatah. He has served as the president of An-Najah National University since 1998.