Colin Powell, the outgoing US secretary of state, will kick off a week of diplomatic efforts on Monday aimed at ensuring smooth Palestinian elections early next year to promote a new and legitimate leadership.

Hopes for Middle East peacemaking were awakened by the death earlier this month of Yassir Arafat, who led the Palestinian national movement for four decades. Initial diplomacy is likely to focus on the more prosaic problems surrounding the Palestinian presidential elections on January 9.