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| Europe |
| FBI Director in France to Discuss Terror |
| 2004-02-05 |
| Hot on the heels of flight cancellations because of terror concerns, FBI Director Robert Mueller visited France and Britain this week, with talks in Paris focusing on terrorism and other crime issues, officials said Wednesday. Mueller’s visit to Paris followed the grounding of six U.S.-bound trans-Atlantic flights from Britain and France on Sunday and Monday because of what U.S. authorities described as "specific and credible" terrorist threats. Mueller, making his first visit to France as FBI director, came to discuss "ongoing cooperation and collaboration with the FBI’s French counterparts in the fight against terrorism and other criminal matters, and to express his appreciation for the continuing support of these French agencies," said U.S. Embassy spokesman Leonard Korycki. Mueller visited London earlier in the week, the U.S. Embassy there said. Mueller held talks Tuesday with France’s justice minister and with the head of France’s domestic security agency, the DST, French officials said. On Wednesday morning, he met law-and-order Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy. A spokesman for the minister refused to give details of the hourlong talks, but confirmed they touched on security issues. French and U.S. officials insist that cooperation on security and intelligence matters remains good despite the tensions that erupted between Paris and Washington last year over the U.S.-led war in Iraq. The head of the French DST security agency, Pierre de Bousquet de Florian, told The Associated Press in a recent interview that his department is in contact with the FBI and the CIA two or three times a day. I hope the French keep cooperating -- too many potential thugs and jihadis running around in Europe. |
| Posted by:Steve White |