Algerian president: Relations with France changing radically

Algerian President Abdulaziz Bouteflika stated in a press interview with the Algerian newspaper El-Gond that was published yesterday that the situation is changing radically between France and Algeria as, in addition to numerous letters between officials in the two countries on high levels, after Boutaflika's meeting with the French President Jacques Chirac in Rabat and the visit of French Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine to Algeria.

Regarding his meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak in Rabat on the margins of King Hassan II's funeral, the Algerian president said it was by chance.

Bouteflika added, "I asked for evacuating Golan without a restriction or a condition and getting out of Lebanon as well as giving the Palestinians their full rights and the establishment of their state with Jerusalem as a capital."