Shalom: Likud to hold decision on primary date

Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom said that the decision to delay the Likud primaries that would determine the Knesset list of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's former party would be made according to the prime minister's medical condition. The decision, Shalom said, would be made either Sunday or Monday. Shalom said that under the current conditions, the time was not appropriate for Likud to withdraw its ministers from the government. The nation of Israel, he said, was currently exclusively concerned with the well-being of the prime minister and added that the Likud ministers had expressed their complete support for Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.