23/05/2010 French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner on Sunday welcomed an easing of tensions between Israel and Lebanon and Syria as he visited Beirut and Damascus. "Nobody is speaking of tension anymore, and so this tension has eased," he told a news conference in Beirut after talks with leaders in Lebanon and Syria that left him "rather reassured."
Kouchner held talks with Lebanese President Michel Sleiman and Prime Minister Saad Hariri before continuing on to Cairo to meet his Egyptian and Spanish counterparts, Ahmed Abul Gheit and Miguel Angel Moratinos. "Minister Kouchner informed the president that his regional tour aims to ease recent tension, which began to decline over the past few days especially as concerns Israel's threats," President Sleiman's office said after the meeting.
France's foreign minister, briefing reporters travelling with him, renewed an appeal for all sides to respect UN Security Council Resolution 1701 which ended hostilities following Israel’s war on Lebanon in 2006.
In Damascus, Kouchner expressed France's concern over Hezbollah's weaponry, to which Assad gave assurances it was not in the interests of Damascus, Tehran or Hezbollah to trigger a new conflict, a French diplomatic source said.
The source, asking not to be named, told Agence France Press that France as a peace broker also wanted to encourage Syria not to facilitate the delivery of arms to Hezbollah.
In his meeting with Kouchner, President Bashar Assad accused the West of overlooking Israeli violations in the region. "The region has changed and the West's policy in the area is no longer acceptable, keeping silent over Israeli violations is no longer acceptable," Syria's official news agency SANA quoted Assad as saying. "If the West wants security and stability to be established in the Middle East, they (Western countries) must start to play an effective role to contain Israel and put an end to its extremist policies," Assad said.
Assad also told Kouchner that countries pushing for UN sanctions against Iran should change their stance, because Tehran's nuclear program was for civilian purposes, SANA reported. "The countries concerned should modify their approach concerning Iran's civilian nuclear program," he said. Assad said an accord signed in Tehran last week after three-way talks with the leaders of Brazil and Turkey, whereby Iran would swap its low-grade uranium for enriched nuclear fuel, was an important step towards a diplomatic solution.
River to Sea
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