Beirut and Damascus agree to joint effort against terrorism
Syria and Lebanon agreed on Monday to boost border controls and anti-terrorism coordination, as the two neighbors took a new step to strengthen ties since recently deciding to establish diplomatic relations.
The decision came during a visit to Damascus by Interior Minister Ziyad Baroud, the first of its kind since the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Premier Rafik Hariri.
Many Lebanese politicians have blamed Syria for the killing, a charge Damascus has vehemently denied.
Aboud and his Syrian counterpart, Bassam Abdul Majid, agreed to set up a commission "to put into place the basis of coordination in the fight against terrorism and crime." According to a statement read out to reporters after their meeting, the commission would also be tasked with establishing a joint mechanism to police the border.
Baroud was accompanied by two senior security officers, Wafiq Jizzini from General Security and Ashraf Rifi of the Internal Security forces.
The visit comes almost three months after Lebanese President Michel Sleiman made a landmark visit to Damascus and less than a month after Syria and Lebanon decided to exchange embassies for the first time.
Cross-border smuggling was also on the agenda after Syria deployed troops along its border with Lebanon for what it called an anti-smuggling operation.
Abdul Majid and Baroud discussed means to boost links between their ministries and the two countries” security services.
The two ministers also reviewed the "confessions" broadcast by Syrian state television last week by alleged Fatah al-Islam militants for a deadly September 27 car bombing in Damascus. In the broadcast, the suspects said that Fatah al-Islam, an Al-Qaeda-linked group which battled the Lebanese Army last year, had links to the anti-Syrian bloc of Saad Hariri, Lebanon”s parliamentary majority leader.
Upon his return to Beirut on Monday evening, Baroud paid a visit to Sleiman to brief him.
During their televised "confessions," captured members of the Fatah al-Islam group said they had been funded by Hariri”s Future Movement.
A suspect identified as Wafa al-Abssi, the daughter of Fatah al-Islam leader Shakar al-Abssi, said on Syrian state television that the group had received money from Future.
A faxed statement to AFP purportedly from Fatah al-Islam on Monday denied responsibility for the bombing and said the men shown on Syrian television were not members.
Fatah al-Islam was crushed by the Lebanese Army last year in a 15-week battle in the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp in North Lebanon. At least 430 people were killed, including 170 soldiers and 220 militants.
On Monday, Hariri dubbed the allegations as "mere lies and fabrications."
Hariri”s media office issued a press statement saying the Syrian TV broadcasts were "untrue" and "offer nothing new."
"Such attempts will not give the impression that Syria is innocent and is not involved with this mafia," the statement added.
The statement also called on the Arab League to form a special committee to "investigate all the crimes committed by Fatah al-Islam in order to block all attempts at portraying Lebanon, instead of Syria, as a source of terrorism."
It accused Syrian President Bashar Assad”s regime of "trying desperately to stretch its hands to control Lebanon”s national sovereignty. We are confident that it will fail."
The head of the Progressive Socialist Party, MP Walid Jumblatt, also denounced the Syrian television broadcast, and describing it as "stories and lies."
"It seems that whenever the establishment of the international tribunal [to try suspects in the Hariri assassination,] draws near the Syrians resort to those twisted means," Jumblatt wrote in his column for the PSP”s Al-Anbaa weekly.
Jumblatt also warned any ministers visiting Damascus, in clear reference to Baroud”s trip to the Syrian capital, of "the importance of keeping away from the establishment of joint security committees," which he said may later develop into a justification of Syrian interference in Lebanese internal affairs.
Jumblatt also called for a re-examination of "the need for the Higher Syrian-Lebanese Council following the adoption of diplomatic representation [between Lebanon and Syria."
"Ministers who visit Syria are urged to raise pending issues between the two countries, especially the Shebaa Farms, the demarcation of the border and the issue of missing persons and detainees in Syrian prisons," he said.
Another March 14 Forces stalwart, Lebanese Forces boss Samir Geagea, said he "does not believe a single word of the Syrian television broadcasts."
"Accusing the Future Movement of funding Fatah al-Islam is unacceptable," Geagea said on Monday.
Offering a very different interpretation of the controversy, the head of the opposition-aligned Free Patriotic Movement, MP Michel Aoun, urged the Lebanese judiciary on Monday "to launch an investigation into the Syrian allegations."
"Throwing accusations without tangible facts and evidence is going to lead us nowhere," he added.
Sleiman will be heading to New York on Tuesday to represent Lebanon at an interfaith conference being hosted by the United Nations. He is scheduled to visit Iran in two weeks, and Germany in early December.
Local daily An-Nahar quoted diplomatic sources as saying Sleiman”s trip to Berlin would include talks with Chancellor Angela Merkel on the new political situation in Lebanon after the Doha Accord, threats from Fatah al-Islam and other extremist groups, and the state of ties between Lebanon and Syria.
The sources added that Berlin would be willing to upgrade its assistance to Lebanon if Beirut made a new request.