LOC18:20
15:20 GMT
PARIS, July 25 (KUNA) -- French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe is to meet
here Wednesday with Arab League Secretary-General Nabil Al-Arabi to discuss a
broad range of issues of common concern, diplomats said here.
In particular, Juppe will be addressing the "mobilisation of French
diplomacy" to seek a resumption of the Middle East peace talks and also
organize a Palestinian aid conference in Paris next September.
The French minister will also be addressing what France views as "the
missed opportunity" at the Quartet meeting July 11, when the Quartet failed to
come up with a strong declaration in favour of the resumption of peace
negotiations on "specific and precise parameters" generally agreed by the
internationally community to be based on the 1967 borders, "with mutually
agreed swaps."
"The new Secretary-General of the Arab League is someone who is
particularly well-suited with whom to broach these issues," an official said
here.
The meeting with the Arab League official Wednesday will also be an
opportunity to discuss the ongoing situations in a number of Arab nations,
affected by popular demonstrations or demands for change.
France intends to bring up the case of a number of countries in the Mideast
region, including Syria and discuss issues relative to regional security.
Libya is also to figure on the agenda for the talks and France wants to get
"the opinion, view and analysis" of Al-Arabi, especially given the role of the
Arab League in preparing for UN resolutions on the Libyan crisis last spring.
The developments known as the "Arab Spring" will be broadly discussed
between Juppe and Al-Arabi, particularly the assistance given to certain
nations in transition by the Group of Eight (G8), which France currently
presides, it was indicated here.
Egypt and Tunisia, and probably Morocco, are to be the main beneficiaries
of a USD 57 billion fund announced by the G8 at the summit in Deauville,
north-western France, last May. (end)
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