DAMASCUS - Foreign Minister Walid Muallem announced on Wednesday that Syria was breaking off contacts with France on the political crisis in Lebanon, responding to a similar gesture by Paris three days ago.

"Syria has decided to cease Franco-Syrian cooperation on the Lebanese crisis," the minister told a press conference in Damascus.

Muallem said Syria had been surprised by President Nicolas Sarkozy's announcement on Sunday that France was cutting contacts as it came just two days after Damascus had reached agreement with Paris on a comprehensive deal to end the crisis.

He said Syria had been led to believe that the deal had the support of Lebanon's Western-backed cabinet but that Sarkozy's chief of staff Claude Gueant later revealed it had been vetoed by the head of the pro-government bloc in the Lebanese parliament, Saad Hariri.

"We were surprised to learn of the comments of the French president during a press conference in Cairo in which he said Syria and the Lebanese opposition are responsible for the failure" to end the crisis which has left Lebanon without a president for more than a month, Muallem said.

"On December 28, Syria and France reached agreement on a comprehensive settlement in Lebanon... providing for the election of a consensus president, the formation of a government of national unity in which every faction would be represented according to its political weight, and the drawing up of a fair electoral law," he said.

"This plan was submitted to the (governing) majority who accepted it.

"After Mr Sarkozy's statement, Mr Gueant called me on December 31 to tell me that (France) had been unable to sell the deal we had agreed on to Saad Hariri.

"I rang Mr Gueant back in the afternoon and he told me that France had decided to break off contacts.

"He told me France was unhappy with the fact that (Syria's) official SANA news agency had divulged the contents of the telephone calls. I retorted that Syria had nothing to hide and was not ashamed of its position."

SANA had reported on Monday that even after Sarkozy's announcement, Muallem and Gueant had had two telephone conversations that had "led to a means of helping the Lebanese parties overcome the political crisis and reach a consensus solution".

Lebanon's Syrian- and Iranian-backed opposition has been campaigning for a government of national unity ever since November last year, when its six ministers quit the cabinet and launched a sit-in outside its offices.

The opposition refuses to recognize the legitimacy of Prime Minister Fuad Siniora's rump cabinet, saying that its failure to represent all of the country's myriad confessional and political groups runs roughshod over the power-sharing arrangements in force since the 1975-90 civil war.

The opposition has also called for reform of an electoral system that it says leaves it at a disadvantage.

During his news conference in Cairo on Sunday, Sarkozy accused Syria of failing to match its words about wanting a settlement to the crisis in Lebanon with deeds on the ground.

"We are now waiting for acts on Syria's part and not speeches," he said. France "will have no more contact with Syria... until we have proof of Syrian willingness to let Lebanon appoint a president by consensus."

Muallem mocked Sarkozy's call saying it flew in the face of repeated Western demands for Syria to keep out of its smaller neighbour's affairs.

"They keep asking us not to intervene in Lebanon but at the same they ask us to use our influence with our Lebanese allies," the minister complained.

"We're not the only people who enjoy influence in Lebanon. Why don't they use theirs?" he asked.

"For Syria to put pressure on the opposition so that the majority can impose its hegemony is unacceptable."

On Friday, a Lebanese parliament session called to elect a president was postponed until January 12, the 11th time that a vote had been put off.

The Lebanese cabinet has accused the opposition of repeatedly blocking the vote at the behest of Syria after the two sides reached agreement on army chief Michel Sleiman as a conpmormise candidate for the presidency. -AFP