French president accuses Hezbollah of terrorist acts
PARIS: French President Nicolas Sarkozy accused Lebanese militant group Hezbollah yesterday of carrying out terrorist acts, another sign of a shift in France's Mideast policy since his election in May. He spoke during a meeting with the families of three captive Israeli soldiers, including two kidnapped by Hezbollah and days before France hosts a conference for Lebanon's feuding factions. Sarkozy said France's goal was for the group to "renounce terrorist acts and become a political party almost like any other," said David Martinon, Sarkozy's spokesman.
Sarkozy's predecessor, Jacques Chirac, did not refer to Hezbollah as a terrorist group, arguing that it was better to prod the group into becoming a purely political organization. While the United States and some other nations label the Shiite group as a terrorist organization, the European Union does not.
Sarkozy has signaled that he is more open to Israel and its analysis of the Middle East than Chirac. Upon Sarkozy's election, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert expressed confidence that Israeli-French relations would improve. Family members of the Israeli soldiers -Gilad Shalit, Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev -met with Sarkozy and members of France's Jewish community at the presidential Elysee Palace. France is involved because Shalit has dual French-Israeli citizenship. The families urged Sarkozy to use France's contacts in the Arab world to press for their release. Sarkozy told them that he had already raised the matter with Arab leaders, including the kings of Jordan and Saudi Arabia, Martinon said.
France is organizing a conference this weekend of representatives of 14 Lebanese factions in Paris to try to end the country's deepening political crisis. Hezbollah is expected to be represented, and French officials will raise the matter of the captive soldiers with the group, said Martinon. "Hezbollah's trip to Paris will be the opportunity to pass the message on to its representatives," Martinon said, adding that Sarkozy himself will not meet them. Noam Shalit, Gilad Shalit's father, said he sensed that Sarkozy was devoting more energy to the case than Chirac did.
He promised us that he's doing all the efforts he can in this matter," Noam Shalit said in English after the meeting. "He considers my son as a French citizen as well as an Israeli soldier." In June 2006, Palestinian gunmen with links to the Islamic Hamas movement tunneled from Gaza into Israel, killed two Israeli soldiers and captured Shalit.
Three weeks later, Lebanese Hezbollah guerrillas crossed Israel's northern border and captured Regev and Goldwasser, helping trigger a 34-day war between Israel and Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. Hamas recently released a recorded message from Shalit, the first sign of life since he was seized. Last week, a Hamas-linked group freed British journalist Alan Johnston, kidnapped by gunmen from a Gaza City street and held for 16 weeks. Hezbollah has not released any details on the conditions of Goldwasser and Regev or provided any sign they are still alive. Hezbollah has often been a thorny issue for French statesmen.
...
Pertinent Links:
1) French president accuses Hezbollah of terrorist acts
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment