By Xinhua,
Paris : The French foreign ministry has confirmed that Syrian Culture Minister Riad Naassane-Agha had conducted a one-day official visit to the country on Tuesday, describing the development as turning a “new page” in relations between the two countries.
It is an “official visit,” the first by a Syrian minister to France since March 2004, which goes to underscore the “old ties between our two countries,” the French foreign ministry announced in a statement Tuesday.
“But even more importantly, the visit is falling within the framework of turning a new page” in our bilateral relations, French foreign ministry spokeswoman Pascale Andreani told reporters during a press briefing.
“The election of a Lebanese president has taken place and we are all been satisfied. There has been contact between the Syrian president and the president of the republic… We hope that the positive developments that have been recorded in recent days will continue,” said the spokeswoman.
France had suspended high-level official contacts with Syria after the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in February 2005.
After his election in 2007, French President Nicolas Sarkozy had announced the resumption of high-level contacts with Syria, before suspending them once again after the two countries failed to reach an agreement to break a deadlock on the election of a head of state for Lebanon.
French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, who had traveled to Lebanon a record seven times in an attempt to broker a deal to end the crisis, then announced that the resumption of dialogue at the highest level with Damascus would be conditioned by the achievement of “tangible progress” on the Lebanese issue.
After the conclusion of the Doha agreement, which paved the way for the election of a president for Lebanon, President Sarkozy reportedly telephoned his Syrian counterpart Bashar al-Assad to discuss various issues affecting the Middle East region, according to diplomatic sources.
The two leaders discussed the “regional situation, including developments in Lebanon and the resumption of indirect dialogue between Syria and Israel, and the proposed Union for the Mediterranean (UPM),” according to a statement issued by the French presidential palace.