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Lebanese official says hostage negotiations focus on ransom

By DALAL SAOUD

BEIRUT, Lebanon -- Lebanese Foreign Minister Fares Boueiz said Friday negotiations for the release of 12 Westerners held hostage by pro-Iranian fundamentalist groups are in the final stage with the captors 'trying to get the best price for their release.'

'The case of the Western hostages theoretically reached an end but became a subject for bargaining,' Boueiz said during an interview at his residence in the Christian neighborhood of Ashrafiyeh.

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'Their plight has taken a commercial aspect and negotiations now focused on monetary technicalities,' the minister said. 'The kidnappers are trying to get the best price for their release.'

Pro-Iranian fundamentalist groups are believed behind the kidnapping of U.S. nationals Terry Anderson, Thomas Sutherland, Joseph Cicippio, Edward Tracy, Alann Steen and Jesse Turner, Britons Terry Waite, John McCarthy and Jack Mann, Germans Thomas Kemptner and Henrich Struebig and Italian Alberto Molinari.

Boueiz said Iran's new policy regarding Lebanon and its eagerness to establish strong and deep ties with the Lebanese government will help end the hostage plight.

'Such a policy will undoubtedly reflect on Iran's allies in Lebanon, ' he said, referring to the smooth deployment of the Lebanese army two months ago in Beirut's southern suburbs, a stronghold of the Iranian- backed Hezbollah, or Party of God, and the location where a number of hostages were believed held.

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'Now that Lebanese troops maintain order in the southern suburbs, it has become very difficult and delicate to keep the hostages there,' Boueiz said.

Boueiz said he considered Syria's 'conciliatory role' in Lebanon and Lebanese government efforts to expand state authority over large parts of the country important developments that would help close the hostage file.

Asked about a recent report saying some hostages have been moved to the southern city of Sidon or the Hezbollah-controlled ancient city of Baalbeck in eastern Lebanon, Boueiz said he had no information whatsoever on the captives' whereabouts.

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