Kouchner said he believed that the Israeli soldiers were alive following his talks with Lebanese groups attending a conference near Paris. The groups, including Hezbollah, were in France for talks on the country's political crisis.

Kouchner said he took up the matter of the two captured Israeli soldiers with Hezbollah officials. "I received the assurance that the negotiations for their release are continuing, that they are on the right track, in particular with the United Nations," Kouchner said.

The capture of Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev led to a war with Israel last summer in which more than 1,300 people were killed.