Assad decrees formal ties with Lebanon
The Syrian leader's order could pave the way for normalizing decades of tangled relations between the two Mideast neighbors.
BEIRUT — The president of Syria ordered his government Tuesday to establish formal diplomatic relations with Lebanon, a move that could pave the way for normalizing decades of tangled ties between the two countries.
President Bashar Assad issued a decree calling for the establishment of Syria's first-ever diplomatic mission in Lebanon, a small mountainous country carved out of the wreckage of the Ottoman Empire and long dominated by its larger neighbor.
Assad has promised to open an embassy before but rarely followed through with anything formal. Establishing a Syrian mission in Beirut might mark a dramatic turning point if it leads to more transparency in the long-troubled relations between the two countries, analysts said.
"This draws a historical line," said Sami Moubayed, a journalist and political analyst based in Damascus, the Syrian capital. "This is a new era."
The decree included no timetable. But a Syrian diplomatic source told The Times that the foreign ministers of the two countries were scheduled to meet in Damascus this week to work out a mechanism for establishing embassies in each other's capital by year's end. The source spoke on condition of anonymity.
Many Lebanese doubt Syria's motives. Those within the pro-U.S. March 14 coalition consider suspect any move by Syria, which has strong ties to the Shiite Muslim militia Hezbollah and other political parties in Lebanon.
While leaders of the March 14 camp welcomed the decision, they said important issues remained unresolved, including the fate of Lebanese prisoners believed to have been locked up in Syrian jails.
Damascus has for months promised Western leaders it would open the embassy in a move aimed at breaking Syria's international isolation. But a diplomatic mission alone won't fix all the problems between the two countries, said Oussama Safa, director of the Lebanese Center for Policy Studies, a Beirut think tank.
"It remains to be seen whether this entails real change in Syrian attitudes and not just window dressing," he said. "Establishing an embassy is good. But who will the ambassador be? Are the Syrians going to use diplomatic channels in their relations with Lebanon?"
Like a dysfunctional couple unable to break free of each other, Syria and Lebanon have long had a rocky and complicated relationship. Some people on both sides of the border have never recognized the partitioning of the Ottoman region once called Greater Syria into two nations.
