Lebanese ambassador to officially take up post in Syria
Lebanon”s Ambassador to Syria will officially start his duties on Monday, Lebanese Foreign Minister Fawzi Salloukh told The Daily Star on Friday. "Lebanese Ambassador to Syria, Michel Khoury, will start his duties on Monday at the embassy in Damascus," the minister confirmed.
Lebanon opened its first embassy in Syria on March 16, five months after the neighbors established diplomatic ties for the first time in October.
Syrian President Bashar Assad said on Thursday that he was able to abolish or amend the bilateral agreements between Lebanon and Syria, including the joint Lebanese-Syrian Higher Council.
Assad also said that the newly established Syrian and Lebanese embassies "can now work together." Assad added that cooperation was ongoing with President Michel Sleiman on several issues, including the Syrian-Israeli pre-negotiations process mediated by Turkey.
The Syrian president”s comments were made during a talk with Lebanese journalists on the sidelines of a conference held in Damascus on the Syrian-Lebanese relations.
He also noted that "acknowledging mistakes committed against the Lebanese-Syrian relations aims to rejecting and correcting these mistakes."
"Dealing with certain confessions in the past deprived Syria of part of the Lebanese people due to confessional interests," He added.
He also stressed that the Syrian forces would not return to Lebanon. Syria ended a 30-year military presence in Lebanon in April 2005, following the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.
Assad called on the Lebanese to "change their confessional based system," saying: "Those, who are controlling the political game, are confessionals; when the civil society creates its state-project, then foreign assistance can complement its efforts."
The Syrian president also said that his country”s support to Hizbullah was based on its "support to the resistance in general and not to Hizbullah as a Lebanese political faction."
"Syria did not and will not spare any effort that contributes to promoting ties between the two countries and serves both peoples” interests," he added.
As for the Taif Accord, which ended the 1975-1990 Civil War, Assad said: "The Lebanese did not deal clearly with the Taif Accord; it was their responsibility to agree on the implementation of the Taif and rebuild their political system."
The Syrian president also touched on the issue of border demarcation, saying that he was willing to demarcate the countries” borders everywhere, but in the Shebaa Farms region.
"These are occupied territories, and we do not want to facilitate Israel”s problem with the Shebaa Farms," he stated.
He added that he had contacted UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and informed him that the "UN has nothing to do with the issue."
"He [Ban] agreed," he added.
On the issue of Lebanese detainees in Syrian jails, Assad said: "Out of the list of 800, we only have 15 detainees who have been arrested on charges of collaborating with Israel."