Sarkozy Hails Saudi, Egyptian Snub to Syria

by **Admin** Sun Mar 30, 2008 6:10 am

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has backed the decision of Saudi King Abdullah and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak not to attend the March 29-30 Arab summit in a snub to Syria.

Saudi Arabia and Egypt are Arab heavyweights…" and I believe that the decision of the countries' leaders not to attend the Damascus summit is sound," Sarkozy said Thursday at a joint press conference with British PM Gordon Brown at the end of his 36-hour state visit to Britain.

Some of us have made it clear to Syrian President Bashar Assad that "Lebanon is a free and independent country and does not need another state to interfere in its internal affairs," the French president said. "He has to leave the Lebanese alone."

He said the Saudi and Egyptian decision to send low-level delegations to the Damascus summit is a clear message to Syria that the two Arab countries have had "enough."

Brown, in his turn, urged the Assad regime to "let the Lebanese decide on their own."

He said Britain, Europe and the United States were worried about the situation in Lebanon.

In a jam-packed trip, Sarkozy called for closer relation between France and Britain, proposed boosting France's troop deployment to Afghanistan, gave a rare address to both Houses of Parliament, and called for greater transparency in the financial markets.

Sarkozy and Brown agreed to hold more regular meetings to coordinate policy, with Brown vowing to turn their "entente cordiale" into an "entente amicale."

The two leaders sealed a multibillion-dollar defense deal, vowed to jointly press the United States on climate change and to curb the spread of nuclear weapons technology.

In their joint statement, the two leaders also said: "The ongoing political crisis in Lebanon also remains a serious concern. We underlined our continued support for the government of Lebanon and for the Arab League's efforts to help achieve a solution. We called for the election of consensus president in Lebanon as soon as possible."