RAMALLAH, West Bank (AFP) — Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas will soon name a prime minister to form a new government to replace the outgoing cabinet of Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, his spokesman said Thursday.

"President Abbas intends to form soon a broad government," Nabil Abu Rudeina said in a statement.

He denied media reports that Abbas had decided to ask Fayyad, who stepped down on March 7, to form a government that would exclude any member of the Islamist Hamas movement that rules the Gaza Strip. "It is not true," he said.

Fayyad announced on April 1 that he would remain in office until the end of unity talks between Hamas and Fatah in Egypt.

Following the latest round of talks on Monday and Tuesday, the two factions adjourned their negotiations to May 16.

The two sides, bitterly divided since Hamas seized power in Gaza after a week of deadly clashes in June 2007, had hoped to form a power-sharing government by the end of the March.

Fayyad, a politically independent former World Bank economist who has won praise from Israeli and Western leaders for his economic reforms, was appointed premier after Hamas drove Abbas's secular Fatah party from the Gaza Strip.