Lebanon to open embassy in Damascus
Lebanon will open an embassy in Damascus for the first time next week under a 2008 agreement which followed years of international pressure on Syria to treat its smaller neighbor as a fully sovereign country.
"The embassy will open from Sunday. We have appointed the acting charge d”affaires until the ambassador arrives in the first half of April," Foreign Minister Fawzi Salloukh of Lebanon said Friday.
Syria has in the past resisted establishing diplomatic ties with Lebanon, saying the two countries had an especially close relationship. For much of history, rulers based in Syria controlled what is now Lebanon.
But critics of Syria, including France and the United States, said that by resisting normal diplomatic relations with Lebanon, Syria was trying to undermine its sovereignty.
Syria dominated Lebanese politics for 30 years until the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri of Lebanon in 2005, which led to the withdrawal of Syrian forces.
President Bashar al-Assad of Syria issued a decree in October to open diplomatic relations with Lebanon after a Lebanese political crisis ended in May and relations improved between Syria and the new Lebanese government.
In December a Syrian flag was raised over the building that houses the Syrian embassy in Beirut. Three Syrian diplomats are posted there, but Damascus has yet to name an ambassador.
Anti-Syrian politicians, including Hariri”s son, Saad, have blamed Damascus for the killing of Hariri. A United Nations investigation implicated high-level Syrian security officials in the incident but Syria denies involvement.
The Lebanese government has a liaison office in Damascus staffed by a Lebanese diplomat. The two countries signed a "brotherhood" agreement in 1991, which anti-Syrian Lebanese politicians say is tilted in Syria”s favour.
Lebanon has named diplomat Michel Khoury as its first ambassador.