It was Kouchner's first visit outside Europe since being appointed last week and a strong signal to a former French colony still linked to Paris through close cultural and linguistic ties.

Vowing continuity in the two countries' relations, Kouchner also used his trip to demand swift action to set up an international tribunal to try suspects in the 2005 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, a proposal that is still stuck both in the Lebanese Parliament and in the UN Security Council.

"The international community must never accept threats and terrorism and we are determined to vote in the UN Security Council a resolution to establish the international tribunal," Kouchner said in Beirut, according to a spokesman traveling with him.

The foreign minister took a personal message of support from President Nicolas Sarkozy to the Lebanese prime minister, Fouad Siniora, assuring him that the new French administration would uphold all the commitments made by his predecessor, Jacques Chirac, who was a personal friend of Hariri's.

France pledged 500 million euros, or $670 million, in reconstruction aid at a donor conference in Paris this year. Two-thirds of those funds will be committed to projects by the end of the year, Kouchner's office said. France also has 1,700 troops in Lebanon as part of a UN peacekeeping force.

After meeting Siniora, Kouchner held talks with the president of the Lebanese Parliament, Nabih Berri, an influential opposition leader who has so far refused to call a parliamentary session, preventing a vote on the tribunal.

Last week, France, the United States, and Britain submitted a draft resolution calling for a tribunal to their 12 fellow members of the Security Council, but so far they have failed to secure the nine votes necessary to approve the text, diplomats said.

Among the permanent members, Russia and China have expressed reservations, they said.

Some of the temporary member countries also hesitate to support the draft, including South Africa, Ghana, Indonesia, Peru, and Panama. Some nations that hesitate fear that a resolution might aggravate violent fighting between the Lebanese military and Islamic militants barricaded in a Palestinian refugee camp in the north of the country.

Kouchner, a former French minister of humanitarian affairs, last went to Lebanon in an official capacity during the civil war.

"You know how much I feel personally attached to Lebanon," he said.

Picture: Lebanon's Defence Minister Elias al-Murr shakes hands with French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner (L) during a meeting near Beirut May 25, 2007. France's new foreign minister Kouchner said on Friday that Paris would continue to snub Syria because it did not believe Damascus respected Lebanon's autonomy.

Sources: Boston Globe, Reuters, Ya Libnan