JERUSALEM (JTA) — The Palestinian Authority’s caretaker prime minister, Rami Hamdallah, has agreed to stay on and form a new government.

On Tuesday, P.A. President Mahmoud Abbas met with Hamdallah and asked him to form a new government, according to the Ma’an Palestinian news service. Hamdallah has five weeks to form the government.

Hamdallah had resigned in June, two weeks after accepting his post. Abbas accepted the resignation but asked the former president of an-Najah National University in Nablus to serve in the caretaker post.

The announcement came on the eve of the scheduled start of Israeli-Palestinian peace negations, the first such meeting in three years.