South Africa, France Call For International Conference on Mideast

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Wednesday, August 07, 2002

South Africa, France Call For International Conference on Mideast

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Visiting South African Vice Foreign Minister Aziz Pahad and French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin Tuesday called for an early international conference on the Middle East crisis and expressed concerns over the worsening of the situation in the region.

Aziz Pahad also met with French Minister of Cooperation Pierre-Andre Wiltzer. The meetings were part of the bilateral dialogue launched in 1998, said Bernard Valero, deputy spokesman of the French Foreign Ministry.

De Villepin and Pahad also discussed issues concerning Iraq, Africa, the anti-terror campaign and development, said the spokesman.

On the conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the French foreign minister said it was very important to implement the "Pretoria pact" mediated by South Africa and signed last week by the leaders of Congo and Rwanda.

The pact, which envisions a withdrawal of Rwandan troops from Congo in exchange for Congo's disarmament of Hutu gunmen blamed for the slaughter of people from the Tutsi minority in Rwanda in 1994, will contribute to the stability in the Great Lakes region, said de Villepin.

"For France, South Africa constitutes a major interlocutor on the African continent," said the French spokesman.

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