Lebanon's new President Michel Sleiman arrived in Syria for a landmark visit on August 13, or last Wednesday. He reached an agreement with his Syrian counterpart President Bashar Assad in Damascus to establish diplomatic relations between the two countries at the ambassadorial level.
"This agreement, which put Syrian-Lebanese relations back on track… is an important historical step," said Arab League Secretary-General Amr Mussa in a statement. The international community also voices an endorsement of it.
The Syrian-Lebanese relations can be said very complex yet close. Syria was made a French mandate after World War I and Lebanon became a part of that mandate. Syria and Lebanon, however, have not established diplomatic relations even after their independence from the French colonial rule in the 1940s. The reason is that "every Syrian administration has, since 1932, regarded Lebanon, albeit quietly, "as a historical part of Syria" instead of recognizing its independent status.
In June 1976, Syria sent its army into Lebanon as part of Arab league efforts to stop it from sliding into a civil war and for an all-round military and political control of the country. President Hafez al-Assad, the father of the current president of Syria, who served as the country's president for three decades in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, had during his lifetime particularly stressed Syria's "special relationship" with Lebanon. No Syrian or Lebanese authority can overlook such historical and irreplaceable ties, he said, and they are simply"one country and one nation".
After assuming his presidency, President Bashar Assad basically inherited and carried out the policy of his father toward Lebanon, and made some adjustments in line with changes or developments in the regional situation. On February 16, 2005, former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri was assassinated in car bombing. Owing to international pressure then, President Bashar Assad announced a troop pullback from Lebanon and concluded a 29-year military presence in the country.
Although Syria and Lebanon adopt a hostile and tough stance towards each other as frontline countries, the Syrian-Lebanese ties, nevertheless, are very close with respect to the daily life of their people. For Lebanon, one land route to Syria is left as its sole link to the outside world. And a Syrian-Lebanese trade agreement, signed in October 1999 and ratified a year later, granted free passage at Lebanese ports to large quantities of Syrian imports. Citizens of both nations go through the entry and exit procedures from each other's country at border ports only with the use of their ID cards.
Moreover, the Syrian and Lebanese law systems that regulate the personal status and family law … stretch the legal options for conducting marriage between members of different communities.
The issue on Syrian-Lebanese ties, though looking as if isolated and unrelated, is in fact closely related to the core issue of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. In addition to the economic interest, the occupied land also poses the intersection of interests of both nations. After Egypt's recovery of its land in Sinai Peninsula by its own endeavor unilaterally, the Golan Heights has become the most crucial and vital Arab land occupied by Israel.
To date, the two nations are still somewhat in disparity on the issue of whether Shebaa Farms on the Golan Heights belong to Syria or Lebanon, and this tiny piece of land has bound them together. "The borders of the Shebaa Farms cannot be demarcated under the Israeli occupation," Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Muallem told a new conference on August 14, and therefore, he said, the Israeli occupation must put to an end. These remarks of Foreign Minister al-Muallem's clearly indicates the Syrian view that both nations should join hands to tackle the issue of the occupied land with Israel.
The summit meetings between the Syrian-Lebanese leaders are of far reaching significance. Apart from the decision to forge diplomatic ties between the two nations, the leaders of both nations have agreed, among others things, to "reactivate the work of the joint committee to demarcate the Lebanese-Syrian border" and to take prompt measures to promote bilateral economic and trade ties and set up a common market, etc.
This signifies that the two countries would cast off a historical burden, and start to forge the normal state-to-state relations and spur the steady growth of bilateral relations. Of course, the settlement of these relevant issues is definitely not a plain sailing.
On the morning of August 13, or last Wednesday, 17 people, including 10 army soldiers, were killed and some 40 others wounded in a blast in Lebanon's northern city of Tripoli. On this tragedy, Lebanese parliament Speaker Nabih Berri acknowledged that the timing of the bombing reflect efforts "to prevent the improvement of the Lebanese-Syrian relations."
In spite of any possible resistance and risks of all sorts, the historical step taken by the Syrian and Lebanese statesmen would contribute to peace and stability in the Middle-East region.
By People's Daily Online and its author is PD reporter Yang Jun
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