PARIS, Sept 3 (AFP) - Iraqi President Ghazi al-Yawar, who was due in Paris on Sunday to start a European tour, has postponed his visit to France due to the ongoing hostage drama involving two French journalists, Arab diplomats said Friday.
"Given the current circumstances, especially the hostage-taking, it was jointly decided to postpone the president's visit, but Mr Yawar will be in Berlin as scheduled on September 8," the diplomats told AFP.
The Iraqi president had been scheduled to arrive in Paris on Sunday at the invitation of French President Jacques Chirac.
France was to be the first stop on a trip that is scheduled to include stops in Germany, Italy, Poland and Belgium.
Yawar is to meet with German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder on Thursday. He will also hold talks in Rome with Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and in Brussels with European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana.
France and Germany staunchly opposed the US-led war in Iraq to topple Saddam Hussein, while Italy and Poland have contributed troops to the US-led coalition still in the country.
Two French journalists have been held hostage in Iraq for two weeks by Islamic militants who demanded that Paris rescind a ban on the wearing of headscarves and other "conspicuous" religious insignia in state schools.
But Paris refused to bow to the kidnappers' demands and the law went into effect on Thursday with the start of the academic year.
The French government said the two journalists, Radio France correspondent Christian Chesnot and Le Figaro reporter Georges Malbrunot, were still being held captive but were no longer in the hands of the radical cell that had held them thus far.
"We know that they are alive and no longer in the hands of the abductors who had held them," French Culture and Communications Minister Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres said late Thursday.
A newspaper controlled by Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi on Thursday blamed Chirac's refusal to help in Iraq for the kidnapping of the two journalists.
In an editorial headlined "Chirac you did not hear our pleas", the Baghdad newspaper said: "Chirac, who wants to present himself as fair, must take his share of responsibility in the kidnapping of his two compatriots as he opposed all international resolutions aimed at restoring Iraqis' security."
The newspaper is the mouthpiece of Allawi's party, the Iraqi National Accord.
French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier has been shuttling between Middle Eastern capitals this week to help secure the release of the two men.
Paris dispatched a top diplomat to Baghdad, and a delegation of French Muslims visited the Iraqi capital on Thursday, but Barnier himself did not travel to Baghdad.