The First Vice President of Syria asserted today that the American and French hostages in Lebanon were being held by ”militias” in the Beirut area, not in the Bekaa region or in other Syrian-controlled areas, as some Western officials believe.
The official, Abdel Halim Khaddam, declined to identify the militias or say which nation, if any, was controlling them.
But the militias are widely believed by French and Mideastern officials to be composed of extremist Shiite Moslems with close ties to Iran. Although Mr. Khaddam did not mention Iran, French and Middle East officials said he seemed to be implying that Syria was not responsible for the fate of the hostages, and that France must approach Teheran to obtain their release.
Mr. Khaddam also said Syria was sparing no effort to win the release of the hostages ”for humanitarian reasons.” Damascus would draw no distinction between French and American hostages, he said, and would continue to work avidly for the release of all those missing in Lebanon.
The Syrian First Vice President made the assertions during a news conference in Paris at the end of a two-day official visit to France, his first visit to Paris in ten years. Mr. Khaddam, who met for 25 minutes this morning with President Francois Mitterrand and for an hour on Wednesday with Prime Minister Jacques Chirac, said his visit marked a ”turning point” in French-Syrian relations.
The hostages are believed to include eight or nine Frenchmen, five Americans, two Englishmen, an Irishman, and a South Korean. In addition, an Italian who disappeared last year is also feared kidnapped.
Mr. Khaddam said Syria did not know the exact site where the hostages were being held; nor did he have any specific information about the fate of William Buckley, an American diplomat, or Michel Seurat, a French researcher, both feared to have been killed.
A Syrian official, who asked not to be identified, said Damascus believed that all the hostages were being held in the suburbs of South Beirut by radical Shiite Moslem groups, including the Party of God, which has particularly close ties to Iran. Reports of Hostages’ Location
It had been widely reported until today that most if not all of the hostages were being held in eastern Lebanon’s Bekaa region, a center of Shiite fundamentalist activity and an area that is assumed to be under the control, at least in principle, of a force of some 25,000 Syrians.
