RIYADH: French President Nicolas Sarkozy proposed holding talks between Iraqi factions in France similar to those it hosted in July for Lebanon, in an interview published Sunday in the Al-Hayat daily.
Sarkozy, who begins a three-nation Gulf tour Sunday in Saudi Arabia, proposed 'hosting in France, far from the heat of passions and on neutral territory, inter-Iraqi roundtable talks that are as large as possible'.
"It is up to the parties involved to decide what steps to take next," he was quoted as saying in the London-based Saudi daily. It is not the first time France has offered to hold such talks for Iraq.
French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner proposed holding such talks last August during a visit to Baghdad, according to French diplomats, and Sarkozy said the offer was made again in November in Istanbul at a ministerial meeting of countries neighboring Iraq.
Iraqi President Jalal Talabani declined the August offer. "I do not believe that a national conference, like the one for Lebanon, is necessary for Iraq," he told the French daily Le Monde.
"In Lebanon, there are different parties who are unable to talk and sit at the same table. In Iraq, we talk and meet every day."
Fourteen Lebanese factions held two days of talks outside Paris last July, bringing together members of the pro-western government of Prime Minister Fuad Siniora and of the pro-Syrian opposition Hezbollah, which fought a war with Israel in 2006 and is branded a terrorist group by the United States.
Sarkozy also tried to reassure Iraqis that France's decision to open a diplomatic representation in the Iraqi Kurdish city of Erbil was "not taken from the viewpoint of a hypothetical future independence for Kurdistan."
He added France also wants to open a diplomatic office in the southern Iraqi city of Basra when security conditions permit.
