Francophone meet to call for peace

Seven months after hosting the Arab League Summit, the Leba-nese capital is preparing for the Francophone Summit in which envoys from over 50 French-speaking nations are taking part.

The summit will open here today and conclude on October 22. A two-day preparatory ministerial meeting was held at the Phoenicia Inter-Continental Ho-tel on Wednesday during which ministers and diplomats were able to reach agreement on a draft resolution on the Middle East conflict, which gave Lebanon a noteworthy attention.

"We reaffirm our full support for Lebanon and its efforts to face up to the political, economic and social challenges," read the draft resolution provided to Gulf News by a non-Lebanese official who preferred to remain anonymous.

"As for the Middle East situation, we call for an immediate re-commencement of the peace process in accordance with the principles of the Madrid Peace Conference and United Nations resolutions related to the conflict, especially Security Council's resolutions 242 and 338," it added.

The French-speaking ministers also said they "support the Arab peace initiative unanimously adopted at the summit earlier this year.

"We regard this peace initiative, in all its clauses, especially those dealing with trading land for peace and others dealing with the issue of Palestinian refugees, as the most appropriate framework for reaching a just, lasting and global solution for the conflict in the region," the draft described the blueprint, authored by Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia.

Meanwhile, the Lebanese officials, who received French President Jacques Chirac yesterday, said the Francophone is summit going on as planned despite regional and international tensions.

"No one would have come if they thought our situation was that bad," Dr Hassan Salameh, Lebanese Minister of Culture, and Head of the Organising Committee of the Summit, said before he and Boutros Boutros-Ghali, Secretary General of the Francophone Movement, convened preparatory meetings on Tuesday.