Verdine on first visit to Algeria

French foreign minister Hubert Verdine, on the first visit to Algeria by a French minister in a year, said on July 12 he found the establishment of a new parliament in the strife-torn former French colony "quite encouraging."

Verdine was in Algiers to attend a meeting of Mediterranean Forum countries, a break-through in Algeria's relative diplomatic isolation since the start of a bloody civil war between Islamist rebels and the military dominated government in 1992.

The new French minister had a long private meeting with his Algerian counterpart, Ahmed Attaf. He and his colleagues from Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia and Italy were also received jointly by president Liamine Zeroual.

Verdine stressed he had just made a first contact and had not come to negotiate.

"The brief, bilateral part of my visit was mainly to find out what the situation is here after the establishment of the new assembly, where we note the existence of different parties, which is an important new element and which, seen from outside, is quite encouraging," he told France's TFI television.