Austrian Defense Minister Herbert Scheibner has been acting as a mediator in talks on the fate of Lebanese detainees in Israel and Israeli soldiers held by the Hizbollah, a spokesman said Friday.
"There have been negotiations for several months with Israel and the other side," ministry spokesman Guenther Barnet told AFP, adding that Vienna had been asked to help by "people in Israel."
The Shiite Muslim fundamentalist group Hizbollah, which spearheaded the struggle against Israel's 22-year occupation of Lebanon, captured three Israeli soldiers during an October 7 raid on an army post in the disputed Shabaa Farms border area.
Hizbollah announced October 18 that it had captured a fourth Israeli, who it said was a colonel working for his country's intelligence services. Israel has said he is only a businessman.
The Austrian spokesman said Scheibner and Israeli Deputy Defense Minister Ephraim Sneh met in Vienna and Tel Aviv over a month ago, adding that "direct contacts are engaged in Syria," the major powerbroker in Lebanon and Hizbollah’s patron.
Austria has had "a good reputation traditionally in the Middle East since the 1970s" due to the pro-Arab policies by then Social Democrat Chancellor Bruno Kreisky, the spokesman said.
"That is known in Israel," he added.
Germany has also been mediating in talks over an exchange of prisoners involving all Arab detainees in Israel, Hizbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah confirmed earlier this month -- VIENNA (AFP)
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