French President Francois Hollande and Saudi King Abdullah on Sunday held talks on escalating tensions in the Middle East during a visit also aimed at boosting commercial ties.
The monarch stressed a “convergence” of positions between the two countries on several issues, a member of Hollande’s entourage said.
At the meeting, Abdullah “expressed his concern, even anxiety, about regional crises — Iran, Syria, Lebanon and Egypt — and praised France’s courageous position on these key dossiers,” the aide said.
Photo: Reuters
Lebanon was at the top of the agenda amid heightening tensions in Beirut after the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Saad al-Hariri’s close aide ex-minister Mohammad Chatah in a car bomb on Friday.
At the king’s luxurious Rawdat Khurayim farm, 60km northeast of Riyadh, both leaders expressed concern over Iranian interference in Lebanon and the region.
Paris and Riyadh share a “will to work for peace, security and stability in the Middle East,” Hollande said in an interview in Saudi-owned daily al-Hayat on Sunday.
Hollande later met with al-Hariri, a strong critic of the Iran-backed Hezbollah group, which is aiding Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s forces in Syria’s civil war.
Al-Hariri, whose father, former Lebanese prime minister Rafic al-Hariri, was assassinated in a massive car bomb in 2005, lives outside Lebanon due to security fears.
In a statement, Saad al-Hariri stressed “the importance of French support of the Lebanese state ... in particular the Lebanese army.”
Speaking to reporters in Riyadh, Hollande pledged to “meet” any requests by the Lebanese government to arm their forces.
His comments came as Lebanese President Michel Sleiman said from Beirut that Saudi Arabia pledged US$3 billion to the Lebanese army to buy French equipment.
Lebanon’s armed forces are woefully underequipped and face multiplying security challenges, underlined by the blast that killed Chatah, although officials played down any link with the Saudi aid pledge.
Hollande, who is accompanied on his two-day trip by four ministers and 30 French business leaders, also met with Syrian opposition leader Ahmad Jarba, president of the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces.
He urged the Syrian opposition to take part in a peace conference in Geneva next month aimed at brokering an end to the country’s civil war, an aide said.
Jarba said “100 a day, mostly civilians, including many women and children” were being killed in bombings by al-Assad’s forces.
The US-Russian backed talks — dubbed Geneva 2 — are aimed at reaching an agreement on a transition to end a war that has claimed an estimated 126,000 lives since March 2011 and displaced millions.
Hollande said he and King Abdullah were on the same page in terms of finding a “definitive solution” to Iran’s nuclear drive, as well as on the crisis in Syria.
In his interview with al-Hayat, Hollande accused al-Assad of using the threat of fundamentalist fighters “to put pressure on the moderate opposition.”
Hollande also said in the interview that Saudi Arabia has become France’s “top client in the Middle East” with trade exceeding 8 billion euros (US$11 billion) this year.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in