BAGHDAD, Sept 7 (AFP) - French diplomats met with influential Sunni Muslim clerics Tuesday over the fate of the two French journalists held hostage for more than two weeks.
"We had talks with the French ambassador and his envoy and we told them how France supports the Arab world and Iraq," said Hatem al-Zaid, a member of the Muslim Scholars Committee, an association of fundamentalist clerics which has contacts with the insurgency.
"We are just waiting and hoping the French hostages will be freed."
Hubert Colin de Verdiere, a French diplomatic envoy, and ambassador Bernard Bajolet were not immediately available for comment about the talks aimed at securing the release of Christian Chesnot and Georges Malbrunot.
A statement purportedly from the Islamic Army of Iraq posted on an Islamist website on Monday gave France 48 hours to accept three new conditions for their release: agreeing to a recent truce offer by Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, payment of five million dollars ransom and a pledge not to get involved in Iraq.