UN envoy calls for Israeli pullback from West Bank

"What we need now is a stabilisation package and a stabilisation programme," with commitments from the Palestinians, Israel and the international community, the envoy said after meeting Palestinian premier Ahmed Qorei.

"From the international community, what is now important is to support in every possible way the Palestinian election, to provide the necessary resources and to monitor the election so that it can be free and fair.

"Even more important, is that Israel starts pulling back troops from the cities of the West Bank in order to facilitate free and fair elections."

Roed-Larsen said "a way has to be found" for Palestinian residents of annexed east Jerusalem to take part in the election for a successor to Yasser Arafat.

In the only previous Palestinian elections in 1996, east Jerusalem residents were given a postal vote after Israel refused to allow polling stations to be set up in the territory, which it regards as an indivisible part of its own capital.

On Thursday, the UN envoy said Arafat's death in a French military hospital on November 11 presented an opportunity for both sides to make mutual concessions and return to the negotiating table.

Roed-Larsen, who steps down from his position next month, was due to hold talks later Sunday with the Palestinian Authority's caretaker president, Rawhi Fattuh.

Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Colin Powell, on a fresh Middle East peace push, was due here Sunday for talks with Israeli and Palestinian leaders ahead of January's election of a successor to Yasser Arafat.

Powell's meetings with the Palestinian caretaker leadership mark a new departure following Washington's long boycott of Arafat. The outgoing secretary of state has not visited since May last year.

For the Palestinians, the talks mark the start of a week of high-level diplomacy, with Powell due to be followed by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Tuesday and British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw on Thursday.