The Lebanese president's historic visit to Syria this week is expected to herald diplomatic relations after a period of unprecedented crises, Lucy Fielder reports from Beirut Establishing diplomatic ties is top on the agenda of a summit between President Michel Suleiman and his counterpart Bashar Al-Assad in Damascus this week. Since independence more than 60 years ago, the two countries have not exchanged ambassadors; Syria always arguing they were too close to need them. Such a step would mark the end to an unprecedented estrangement between Damascus and Beirut during more than three years of crisis. Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Al-Muallem expressed his country's determination to establish diplomatic relations when he invited Suleiman in late July. Announced relations will be welcome to Lebanese, many of whom have long accused Syria of refusing to recognise their sovereignty. "I think this will be largely symbolic," said Syria-based political analyst Andrew Tabler. "The visit is supposed to clear the way for Lebanon and Syria to establish an embassy in each others' capitals and that will take care of one aspect of relations and bring Lebanon and Syria in line with UN Security Council Resolution 1680." Other issues will take longer, he said. The May 2006 UN resolution called on Syria to respond to a Lebanese government request to establish diplomatic relations and delineate the shared border. Syria slammed it as interference. Former army chief Suleiman, who was elected in May 2008 after a six-month vacuum at the Baabda Palace, has good relations with the Syrian leadership, but unlike his pro-Syrian predecessor, came to power as a consensus candidate with broad backing. His election, as well as the appointment of a national unity cabinet that gives Syrian-backed Hizbullah and its allies a veto- wielding third of seats, marked the end of a political schism that split Lebanese society and exploded into violence in May. Hizbullah took over parts of west Beirut and other pockets of Lebanon with its allies. As the world stood aside, the deadlock was broken, for now, paving the way for this week's rapprochement. Lebanon and Syria have been intertwined since decades before Syria intervened in Lebanon a year into its 1975-1990 Civil War to prevent the defeat of the Maronite Christian side. Troops remained after the civil war ended and the tentacles of political and economic influence grew. Until Washington stepped up pressure on Syria during 2004, it officially referred to Syria's domination of Lebanon as a "presence", at first encouraging it as a stabilising force. But the extension of former president Emile Lahoud's mandate in late 2004 under Syrian pressure galvanised a fledgling organised opposition to Damascus's role as kingmaker. Former prime minister Rafik Al-Hariri's assassination, blamed by many in Lebanon and the West on Syria, detonated the charge, triggering a tidal wave of international and domestic pressure. Syria pulled out its soldiers and ubiquitous intelligence services in May and June 2005. Since then, the anti-Syrian rhetoric of the US-backed "14 March" movement, which held the parliamentary majority and dominated the government, was harsh. Formal diplomatic relations would be a key stage in ending Syria's isolation, following a warming of ties with France and likely triggering a return to the Arab fold after disputes with Egypt and Saudi Arabia that largely focussed on Lebanon. Diplomatic links were a historically sensitive issue. "Some in Syria feel that many areas of Lebanon were lost to them when Lebanon was established and always wanted to get them back," Tabler said. French mandate powers carved out the state of Greater Lebanon in 1920 by adding swathes of historic Syria to mainly Maronite Christian Mount Lebanon. Syria and Lebanon became independent in 1943, but the border was never formally delineated. Border demarcation is on the agenda this week, but likely to require detailed talks. Most contentious is the Israeli-occupied Shebaa Farms, a strategic and water-rich pocket where Syria, Israel and Lebanon meet. Hizbullah has long cited Shebaa as a key reason for it to keep its weapons arsenal. As domestic pressure for disarmament has grown, so have calls for a "diplomatic solution" to the status of Shebaa from the resistance movement's critics, who hope to remove one pretext for its armed status. When the United Nations drew up the Blue Line following Israel's withdrawal from South Lebanon in 2000, it put Shebaa Farms on the Syrian side of the border. But both Damascus and Lebanon say they are Lebanese and therefore Israel's pullout was incomplete. The United Nations has expressed willingness to reopen the file. "Nothing prevents the demarcation of the Lebanese-Syrian borders, that is if border demarcation is a must," Al-Muallem told reporters on his July visit to Beirut, adding that the Shebaa problem was one of Israeli occupation, not a bilateral dispute. Shebaa aside, policing the remote, rugged border and preventing already rife smuggling is likely to be easier said than done, particularly with many villages -- and families -- straddling the line. Another issue that has come under the spotlight east of the border is the fate of hundreds of Lebanese who went missing after detention by Syrian troops, local militias or Lebanese security forces during the period of Syrian dominance. Many of their relatives believe their loved ones are still jailed in Syria. Al-Muallem said a joint Syrian-Lebanese committee of judges would work on the issue. Syria denies holding the Lebanese. Ghazi Aad, head of Support for Lebanese in Detention and Exile (SOLIDE), said this was the first time Damascus had allowed the issue to be raised. "We're not expecting much, to be honest, but it's a positive first step," he said. SOLIDE has 600 names of what it calls "victims of enforced disappearance" in Syria, gathered from families. "We know for sure there are Lebanese still alive in Syrian prisons," Aad said, referring to testimony from former detainees. He called for a full investigation. Another bone of contention is the fate of bilateral agreements and bodies. The anti-Syrian 14 March camp wants the Syrian- Lebanese Higher Council that has administered relations scrapped, as well as the 1991 Pact of Brotherhood, Cooperation and Coordination under which it was established. In a July interview with Syria's semi-official Al-Watan newspaper, the head of the Higher Council, Nasri Khouri, said he did not expect detailed discussions at the summit, but that it would kick-start protracted talks to hammer out the issues. He said the council would endure and coordinate with the embassies. Khouri noted there were about 22 bilateral agreements standing, mostly signed in the early to mid-1990s. Analysts say the tariff cuts and regulations of the Greater Arab Free Trade Area, which came into effect in 2005, have largely superseded those pacts in practice. "It will be interesting to see whether the embassies take on some of those duties," Tabler said. "I don't think the bilateral agreements will be interrupted, but probably actually facilitated, since there will actually be an office to go to." Economic links between the two countries were mutually beneficial, Tabler said, with Lebanon dependant on Syria as both a market for its agricultural goods and a transit route for produce to reach the Arab Gulf. At periods of heightened tension in the past few years, columns of trucks clogged the no-man's land at the Syrian border for weeks on end, their cargo often ruined.
