KABUL - The national unity government's cabinet will be formed within 10 days, in keeping with President Ashraf Ghani's timeline, presidential spokesman Nazifullah Salarzai said on Tuesday.

"The 45-day timeline hasn't finished, efforts are underway for the formation of a new cabinet and progress will be made in the next two weeks," Salarzai assured on Tuesday.

Although Salarzai claimed efforts to select the new cabinet were being fast-tracked, there have also been unconfirmed reports that President Ghani and Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah have yet to overcome the differences that divided them over the matter of appointments when they were negotiating the deal that ended the election crisis.

So far the national unity government has been in office for 37 days without a fresh crop of ministers. Mr. Abdullah has chaired the meetings of the Council of Ministers (CM), which includes the acting ministers leftover from Hamid Karzai's presidency.

On Tuesday, Abdullah presided over a CM meeting and applauded the work of the security forces on Ashura Day. "I extremely grateful and appreciate the job of the security forces for security during Ashura," he said.

Yet with burgeoning economic and security problems around the country, the need for a capable and determined new cabinet to take on the difficult work ahead of the administration has perhaps never been greater.

That need may be at odds with the potential ongoing disputes between Ghani and Abdullah.

"Talks continued over the formation of a new cabinet in two aspects: the first aspect covers the leadership and the second topic is the technical aspect, the efforts aimed to nominate those individuals in the cabinet that could honor the aspirations of the people," Salarzai said.

Analysts have said the cabinet appointments will be a major indicator of the direction of the new government, and, therefore, have a lot of pressure riding on them.

"People want to see a qualified and effective cabinet to formed," university lecturer Tahir Hashimi said. "If there is no competent cabinet, people will be affected."

Ghani planned to have his cabinet formed before he London summit, at which he is expected to be accompanied by his top ministers.

Based on the Afghan constitution, acting ministers are only allowed to serve for two months. (Tolonews)