French and PLO Officials Hold Meetings

Foreign Minister Jean-Bernard Raimond has been meeting with PLO representatives here to assure them that France wishes to see the PLO “associated with an overall settlement” of the Middle East situation that would allow for “the Palestinian people to exercise its right of self-determination.”

Raimond conveyed this view last week at a meeting with PLO representative Ibrahim Souss. Souss requested the meeting after Prime Minister Jacques Chirac reportedly told an Israeli journalist that he opposed the creation of a Palestinian state. A Foreign Ministry spokesman said Raimond repeated France’s principle behind a Mideast peace settlement, based mainly on the right to security and justice for all states in the region.

Souss told French television afterwards that he was “not worried” about France’s Mideast position and said that he, in turn, wishes to see Paris play a “full role” in any bid to achieve a settlement.

Souss also indicated that Farouk Kaddoumi, head of the PLO’s political department, would meet with Raimond this week. Government sources said the meeting would take place on Tuesday. Kaddoumi previously met with the Foreign Minister last May.

The head of the Arab League Mission here, Hamadi Essid, also met with Raimond last week to express the “Arab world’s disquiet following the remarks attributed to Chirac.” The Prime Minister’s comments, applauded by Israel, have created controversy here because they differ from the position adopted by President Francois Mitterrand. The President called for the establishment of a Palestinian state as part of a Mideast settlement during an address he made to Israel’s Knesset in 1982.