Regional News
Diplomatic ties to top agenda of Lebanon-Syria summit
By AFP
Aug 12, 2008 - 5:49:04 AM

BEIRUT (AFP) — The establishment of diplomatic ties and the opening of embassies will top the agenda of this week's Damascus summit between the Lebanese and Syrian presidents, a Lebanese official said on Monday.

"The establishment of diplomatic relations between Damascus and Beirut, and the opening of embassies in each other's country for the first time in their history will be at the centre of the discussions," the official said.

Lebanese President Michel Sleiman and his Syrian counterpart Bashar al-Assad, whose countries have not had diplomatic ties since independence more than 60 years ago, are to meet on Wednesday and Thursday.

The decision to set up ties was announced in Paris when they met last month.

Links between Beirut and Damascus, which for three decades dominated Lebanon until its troop withdrawal in April 2005, deteriorated after the assassination of former Lebanese premier Rafiq Hariri.

The official, who declined to be named, said the fate of a Lebanese-Syrian higher council and a 1991 friendship and cooperation treaty would also figure on the agenda of the Damascus talks.

The anti-Syrian camp which holds the majority in Lebanon's parliament wants both the treaty and the council to be scrapped.

But the council's secretary general, Nasri Khouri, said embassies did not spell the end of the coordination body. "There will be coordination between the two countries' embassies and the council," he told AFP.

The demarcation of borders between Syria and Lebanon will also be discussed as well as the fate of the Israeli-occupied Shebaa Farms, where Beirut claims sovereignty with the consent of Damascus, the official said.