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Lebanon, Syria to discuss setting up diplomatic ties

Lebanese President Michel Sleiman will visit Damascus next week for talks with Syrian counterpart Bashar al-Assad, as the two neighbors move to establish diplomatic ties, an official said yesterday.

“The summit will be held on Aug. 13,” an official from the presidential palace told reporters.

Relations have been tense since Syria pulled its troops out of Lebanon in 2005 in the aftermath of the assassination of Lebanese billionaire and former prime minister Rafiq Hariri, ending a three-decade military presence.

Syria was widely blamed for the massive Beirut car bomb blast that killed Hariri but denies any involvement. The issue remains a key bone of contention between the two countries.

It will be Sleiman’s first official visit to Syria and the first meeting with Assad since the two leaders announced in Paris last month that they planned to establish ties.

The two neighbors have never had official diplomatic relations since their independence from France more than 60 years ago and the move is widely seen as a necessary step for Syrian recognition of Lebanese sovereignty.

Despite its 2005 troop pullout from Lebanon, Syria is believed to still wield much political power in its smaller neighbor and backs the Hezbollah-led opposition.

But Syria is gradually being welcomed back into the international fold, with a high-profile visit by Assad to Paris last month and the launching of indirect peace negotiations with Israel after an eight-year freeze.

Lebanon’s new national unity Cabinet, in which the opposition holds veto power, adopted a policy statement on Monday calling for “brotherly relations with Syria on the basis of mutual respect of sovereignty and the independence of both countries.” It also called for the demarcation of borders.

A parliamentary vote of confidence on the manifesto will allow the government to begin to function officially.

An official from speaker Nabih Berri’s office told reporters that parliament would probably meet on Friday.

The unity government was formed after a debilitating 18-month political crisis that culminated in fighting that left 65 dead in May and saw an armed Hezbollah-led takeover of large swathes of west Beirut.

Sleiman came to office after a deal struck in Qatar between the rival factions on May 21 — filling a six-month void in the presidency.

After the Doha accord, French President Nicholas Sarkozy moved to reward Assad by renewing contacts with Syria, which the West had isolated from the international community for alleged meddling in Lebanon.

Lebanon’s Western-backed ruling bloc accuses Syria of destablizing the country and being behind a series of assassinations of prominent anti-Syrian figures.
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