The endorsement from 23 nations and six major international organisations, including the United Nations, came during a carefully scripted day of talks Tuesday in London haunted by a suicide bomb attack in Tel Aviv four days earlier that killed five people and shattered what had been a promising Israeli-Palestinian ceasefire.

“We’ve got a script that is clearer today that ever before,”  said British Prime Minister Tony Blair, host of the London Meeting on Supporting the Palestinian Authority.

“Everyone now accepts the two-state solution... Doing it is the great task, but nobody can be in any doubt about what people want us to do.”

The blueprint—set out by Palestinian Authority president Mahmud Abbas—will see the European Union take the lead in coordinating international support for reform of Palestinians’ political and administrative institutions.

The World Bank will play a similar role in salvaging the Palestinians’ conflict-shattered economy, while the United States—breaking from its image as Israel’s best friend—will lead expertise in developing Palestinian security forces capable of cracking down on extremists.

With some welcome international credibility now under his arm, Abbas was headed Wednesday to Brussels for talks with European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso and EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana.

In a 17-page set of conclusions, participants at the London meeting hailed the Palestinian Authority’s blueprint for reforms, calling them “a major step in implementing its roadmap commitments”.

But in a candid warning to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, the conclusions added: “Participants urged and expect action by Israel in relation to its own roadmap commitments.”

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice used the meeting to confirm that a US military security expert, Lieutenant General William Ward, would “soon relocate to the region to lead our efforts.”

“He will obviously be an important set of eyes, ears and information about what is going on on the ground and how well the parties are living up to obligations,” she said.

Israel did not attend Tuesday’s meeting, which the Palestinians regarded as a prelude to a full-dress peace conference, which French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier offered to host in the second half of this year.

“We hope for a steady return to the spirit of reconciliation, through peaceful negotiations and successful negotiations based on legality and international legitimacy,” Abbas told reporters in London.

Israel, still reeling from Friday’s bomb attack, welcomed the outcome of the conference but remained wary.

“Israel stresses it will be impossible to move the political process forward in keeping with the roadmap as long as the Palestinian Authority does not firmly fight terrorism or dismantle terrorist organisations,” Sharon’s office said.

Tuesday’s meeting, held on a bitterly cold winter’s day in a heavily-guarded conference hall only a two minute walk from the Houses of Parliament, was several months in the making.

For Blair, it was a grandstand opportunity to draw a link between Palestinian unrest and the bigger menace of global terrorism.

“Most of the poison that we want to take out of international relations has swirled around as a result of the failure to make progress on this issue,” he said. “The benefit, if we are able to succeed ... will be felt by all of us.”

In his opening statement to Tuesday’s meeting, Abbas pledged to unify the Palestinians’ fractured security forces and crack down on extremist groups whose violence has time and again laid ruin to peace initiatives.

The conference is to be followed at a later date by a pledging conference, at which the world’s leading nations will set out what they can give the Palestinians in terms of money and manpower.

Blair said cash is already flowing in the Palestinians’ direction, including a previously announced 330 million dollars (250 million euros) from the European Union, the primary source of funds for the Palestinian Authority.

He said another 350 million dollars would be coming from the United States, and that Britain would put up 30 million pounds (43.6 million euros, 57.6 million dollars).