The Hindu : International : Crisis talks on as hostage deadline passes

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Sep 03, 2004

International

International

Crisis talks on as hostage deadline passes

BAGHDAD/PARIS, SEPT. 2. The managing editor of France's Le Figaro newspaper told a radio station on Thursday that the two French journalists held hostage in Iraq were still believed alive, despite threats they would be executed unless Paris annuls a law banning Islamic headscarves.

Jean de Belot told Europe-1 radio that French authorities have information obtained from ``indirect contact'' with the kidnappers suggesting that the two have not been killed.

French envoys held crisis talks in Iraq and Jordan on Thursday in a desperate bid to free Christian Chesnot and Georges Malbrunot. Mr. Chesnot (37), of Radio France International, and Malbrunot (41), reporting for Le Figaro, were last heard from on August 19 as they set off for the southern city of Najaf. Their Syrian chauffeur also vanished.

Muslim delegation

A group of French Muslims arrived in Baghdad to try to pursue negotiations with the shadowy militant group holding the journalists. Representatives of the French Council for the Muslim Faith, which serves as a link to the French President, Jacques Chirac's Government, left Paris on Wednesday in hopes of retrieving the journalists.

A first deadline issued by militants for France to overturn its head scarf law passed on Monday night without incident. A second deadline was issued on Tuesday and extended until late Wednesday, but also passed without word of their fate.

In Baghdad, Bernard Bajolet, the French ambassador to Iraq, met leaders of the Muslim Scholars Association that has been trying to secure the journalists' release. Using his nation's formidable diplomatic clout, Mr. Chirac has made good on a pledge to spare no effort to save the lives of the journalists.

A special envoy was dispatched to Baghdad earlier this week, and the Foreign Minister, Michel Barnier, has held emergency, high-level talks in Qatar, Jordan and Egypt. Meanwhile, Al-Jazeera reported that it had received a gruesome video from a militant group in Iraq linked to the Al-Qaeda that showed three Turkish hostages being killed.

In Fallujah, angry crowds denounced the U.S. as they mourned the victims of an airstrike on an alleged militant safe house that killed 20 people, including three children.

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