DAMASCUS (Reuters) - Syrian President Bashar Assad and Lebanese President Michel Sleiman agreed on Wednesday to establish diplomatic relations between their countries at ambassadorial level, a Syrian official said.
Damascus has been under pressure from the United States and other governments including France to treat its smaller neighbour more as a sovereign state by taking steps including opening a Beirut embassy and demarcating borders with Lebanon.
"The two presidents... have instructed their foreign ministers to take the necessary steps in this regard, starting from today," Buthaina Shaaban, an adviser to President Assad said.
Syria had dominated Lebanon until the 2005 assassination of former prime minister Rafiq Hariri triggered pressure for it to end a 29-year military presence in the country.
Sleiman, who had been army chief before his election, was received at a hilltop palace overlooking Damascus. He was appointed head of Lebanon's military when Syria still controlled the country and describes his ties with Damascus as excellent.
The two countries announced last month in Paris that they intended to open diplomatic relations for the first time since they gained independence in 1943. Wednesday's agreement formally set those ties on the highest level.
It was Sleiman's first visit to Syria since his election in May as part of a Qatari-mediated deal that defused a bitter political conflict between an anti-Syrian majority coalition and an alliance of groups backed by Damascus.
Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Mouallem told Lebanon's As-Safir newspaper that Sleiman's visit was "a starting point and a true foundation for future relations".
Syria's opponents in Lebanon, including Saudi-backed politician Saad Hariri, have accused Damascus of assassinating Rafiq Hariri and other anti-Syrian figures and fomenting instability since its withdrawal. Syria denies the allegations.
Dressing the wounds
Mouallem said Lebanon and Syria must decide whether they wanted to "open the wound or dress it and move forward".
"We are comfortable with the sequence of positive developments in Lebanon," he said, in reference to the Doha agreement which ended 18 months of political conflict.
The deal effectively gave Syria's allies in Lebanon, led by the powerful Hizbollah guerrilla group, the power of veto over the government.
Saad Hariri, Rafiq Hariri's son and political heir, told journalists on Tuesday he would not visit Damascus, but hoped Sleiman would return with "excellent results".
The summit agenda included the fate of hundreds of Lebanese who went missing during the era of Syria domination and whose relatives hold Damascus responsible for their disappearance.
Economic and water agreements that anti-Syrian Lebanese politicians regard as unequal are also expected to be discussed.
Bomb attack
At least 15 people including nine soldiers were killed in Lebanon on Wednesday, according to security sources, in the deadliest attack on the army since a battle with Al Qaeda-inspired militants last year.
An army statement described the attack in the northern city of Tripoli as a "terrorist bombing" - a phrase used in the past by the military when it suspects militant Islamist involvement.
It said the bomb had been placed in a bag at a bus stop where soldiers usually gather.
Another 45 people were wounded. Four were in a critical condition, medical sources said.
Red Cross workers ferried casualties to hospital. The ground was spattered with blood and covered in shards of glass.
"It seems that the bomb was detonated wirelessly by remote," Lebanon's police chief Ashraf Reefi said. Security sources had earlier put the death toll at 18.
There were no immediate claims of responsibility for the attack in Lebanon's second largest city, which has been the scene of fighting between security forces and Islamist fighters and sectarian violence linked to political tension in Lebanon.
"The army and security forces will not yield to attempts to terrorise them with attacks and crimes," said Sleiman, who was army chief until elected president in May.
PM condemns Tripoli attack
AMMAN (Petra) - Jordan on Wednesday denounced the heinous attack that killed several innocent Lebanese civilians yesterday in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli. In a cable Prime Minister Nader Dahabi sent to his Lebanese counterpart, Fuad Siniora, he said the government condemns the attack and expressed the Kingdom’s support for the Lebanese government and people in “confronting such irresponsible acts that target the security and stability of Lebanon”. Dahabi extended his deepest condolences and sympathies to the Lebanese people and wished a speedy recovery for the injured.
