New PLO chief Mahmud Abbas pledged to follow in the footsteps of Yasser Arafat after he was picked by the dominant Fatah faction as its candidate to succeed the late Palestinian leader.
"We promise that we will continue on the same path that you (Arafat) have paved to achieve the dream that has always lived with you... establishing an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital," Abbas told a special session of parliament to honour the late leader.
"We will not fall silent until our right of return is exercised and the plight of the refugees is solved," he added.
Abbas was unanimously adopted by Fatah's decision-making central committee late Monday, a move which is to be rubber-stamped by the Revolutionary Council on Thursday.
He is now the overwhelming favourite to win the January 9 election to succeed Arafat as president of the Palestinian Authority, especially as the Islamic militant group Hamas has decided to boycott the poll.
Abbas, a former prime minister, took over from Arafat as head of the Palestine Liberation Organisation in the immediate aftermath of his death on November 11.
Arafat's death and the emergence of the moderate Abbas as his likely successor have encouraged hopes of a revival of the moribund Middle East peace process.
But his insistence on the right of return for Palestinian refugees who were expelled or fled their homes when Israel was created in 1948 illustrates the scale of the task facing the peace process.
Prime minister Ahmed Qorei told MPs that "the enormous loss" of Arafat "must not demotivate us, and our grief must not blunt our capacity to seize the initiative."
The main international sponsors of the roadmap, a peace plan endorsed by Israel and the Palestinians last year that aims to create a Palestinian state in 2005, met in Egypt Tuesday on the sidelines of an international conference on Iraq as part of a flurry of diplomatic activity.
"We are all encouraged. We reaffirmed our determination to work with the Palestinian leadership to support the election" for a successor to Arafat, UN chief Kofi Annan told reporters.
"We must give them all the necessary support. There is an opportunity to ... move ahead with the roadmap".
US Secretary of State Colin Powell, who also attended the summit, reaffirmed Washington's commitment to the blueprint as the only peace plan on the table.
"The roadmap now is... the single plan that is being used by both parties as well as the international community to achieve a two-state settlement," he said.
He also spoke highly of Palestinian reform efforts since the death of Arafat, whom the United States and Israel had boycotted for the last three years as an obstacle to peace.
"I think that new opportunities have been created for the Palestinians to reform their leadership and I am very impressed with the way they have gone about it."
The brief meeting by members of the so-called quartet -- the European Union, Russia, the United Nations and the United States -- came a day after Powell held talks with Israeli and Palestinian leaders on his first trip to the region in 18 months.
Apart from Powell and Annan, the meeting grouped Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana, EU external affairs commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner and Dutch Foreign Minister Bernard Bot, whose country currently holds the European Union's rotating presidency.
Following the meeting in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, Lavrov went to Jerusalem where he held talks with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. There was no immediate word on the content of the meeting.
Later in the evening, he was expected to hold talks with Abbas and Qorei in the West Bank town of Ramallah.
"The message to the Palestinians and the Israelis is the quartet wants them to cooperate to have free and fair elections," Lavrov said.
Israel "could assist in getting in touch with the Palestinians to ensure that Palestinians who want to vote can do so," and by removing military roadblocks around the occupied territories.
As part of the frenzy of diplomacy, Israel also announced that British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw would visit on Wednesday. An Israeli government source said there was a possibility he would be followed by Prime Minister Tony Blair next month.
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