Sarkozy arrives in Algeria for three-day visit

Dec 3, 2007, 15:40 GMT

Algiers - French President Nicolas Sarkozy arrived in the Algerian capital Algiers Monday for a three-day visit aimed at securing lucrative business contracts and smoothing relations still troubled by the two countries' colonial history and the bloody war that ended it.

Sarkozy was accompanied by some 150 French entrepreneurs eager to profit from Algeria's economic recovery following a ten-year civil war in which an estimated 200,000 people were killed.

Contracts worth some 3.4 billion euros (5 billion dollars) are to be either signed or agreed during the visit, half of them in the energy sector. In addition, the two countries are expected to formulate an agreement on closer cooperation in the field of nuclear energy.

The visit was preceded by controversial statements by the Algerian minister for war veterans, Mohammed Cherif Abbas, who referred to Sarkozy's distant Jewish heritage and said that his election as French president was engineered by 'the Jewish lobby.'

Sarkozy has angered many Algerians because of his refusal to apologize for France's colonial activities, saying in the past that colonialism was not all bad.

In an interview at the weekend with the Algerian news agency APS, Sarkozy said that there were 'wounds on both sides that have not yet healed,' but added that both countries must now 'turn towards the future.'