French envoy to visit Damascus Sunday for talks on Lebanon - Haaretz

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Sat., October 27, 2007 Cheshvan 15, 5768

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Last update - 20:28 27/10/2007

French envoy to visit Damascus Sunday for talks on Lebanon

By DPA

French special envoy Jean-Claude Cousseran is scheduled to arrive in Damascus on Sunday for talks with Syria over the Lebanese presidential standoff, official Syrian sources said.

Cousseran, a special envoy of Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, is scheduled to meet Syrian Vice-President Farouk al-Sharaa, the sources told Deutsche Presse-Agentur DPA.

It was not immediately known whether he would also meet with President Bashar Assad. Cousseran is currently in Saudi Arabia.

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Cousseran's visit follows a telephone call late Friday between Kouchner and his Syrian counterpart Walid Muallem on the situation in Lebanon.

Kouchner briefed Muallem on the outcome of the recent European ministerial delegation visit to Lebanon, Syria's official news agency SANA said.

It added that the two sides have underscored the importance of "reaching an agreement among the Lebanese to elect a consensus president according to constitutional norms."

Last week, the foreign ministers of France, Italy and Spain met in Beirut with Lebanese government and opposition leaders in an attempt to reconcile their conflicting views on the elections of a new president.

The attempt to choose a successor to the pro-Syria Lebanese President Emile Lahoud before he steps down on November 24 has become Lebanon's most serious political crisis since the end of the civil war in 1990. Fears are high of a power vacuum that could splinter the government.

Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Siniora's pro-Western, anti-Syrian government, which holds a slim majority in parliament, has been deadlocked for 11 months with the pro-Syrian opposition factions led by the Shi'ite movement Hezbollah.

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