Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will announce a new expanded government very soon, a well-informed source told Xinhua on Monday.

"The announcement of the expanded government will not exceed two days if it does not happen in the next hours," the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The government, to be headed by the Western-backed Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, will exclude the Islamic Hamas movement which won the 2006 parliamentary elections, said the source.

Abbas asserted that he would not ask anyone else to form the new government, rejecting the demand of a Fatah member to be named as the new premier, according to the source.

"There is nothing to prevent the declaration of the government" since the Egyptian-hosted fifth-round talks to reconcile Hamas and Abbas' Fatah movement have so far failed to come up with a new unity government, according to the source.

The new government was supposed to be sworn in last week but Fatah delayed it in an attempt to see whether it could reach an agreement on a unity government with Hamas in the Cairo dialogue.

On Sunday, rival Hamas and Fatah movements decided to extend the fifth round of Palestinian reconciliation talks initially set for Saturday and Sunday, by another day to debate on the outstanding issues, mainly security and government.

Nabil Shaath, a senior Fatah leader, told reporters that Fatah and Hamas leaders will hold meeting in Cairo on Monday "to discuss the remained outstanding issues, and the joint committee proposed by Egypt to be in charge of implementing the agreement."

Egypt has proposed to form a factional committee to be under the command of President Mahmoud Abbas to coordinate between the two leaderships, Hamas government in Gaza and Fatah government in the West Bank.