Syria’s Foreign Minister Asaad Hassan al-Shaibani traveled to Beirut to meet Lebanese officials on Friday. This is important for Syria. It wants close ties with Lebanon. It also wants to make sure that Lebanon’s Hezbollah does not destabilize the border or use Syria for smuggling.
Israel continues to strike Hezbollah, and this aids Syria by keeping the group in check. However, Lebanon’s government has vowed to disarm Hezbollah and has not completed the task yet.
Syria and Lebanon have long had complex ties. From the late 1970s to 2005, Syria occupied Lebanon. As such it played a major role in Lebanese politics.
Hezbollah meddles in Syrian politics
Syria’s former leader Hafez al-Assad was the architect of the Syrian occupation and meddling in Lebanese politics.
Later, Hezbollah became very powerful and used Syria to move weapons to Lebanon. During the Syrian civil war, the Assad regime, under Bashar al-Assad, leaned on Hezbollah for help. Iran sent fighters, too. As such, Hezbollah became powerful in Syria but also suffered heavy losses in the decade-long war.
When Hezbollah was weakened by Israel last September and October, this became the leverage that the Syrian rebels led by Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) needed to launch the war to defeat Assad. HTS rolled into Damascus on December 8, 2024.
Now, the new government in Syria wants to improve ties with Beirut. As such, it has sent not only the foreign minister but also Justice Minister, Mazhar al-Weis, and the chief of the General Intelligence Service, Hussein al-Salameh, to Lebanon. They met with Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam in Beirut.
“The talks focused on bilateral relations and ways to strengthen joint cooperation between the two brotherly countries, as well as a number of political, economic and security issues of mutual interest,” Syrian state media SANA reported on Friday.
The talks “focused on the latest regional developments and ways to enhance coordination between Damascus and Beirut to serve the interests of the two countries. The meeting was attended by Minister of Justice, Mazhar Al-Weiss, and Head of the General Intelligence Service Hussein Al-Salama,” SANA added.
Shaibani said that Syria is working with Beirut to “establish trade and investment relations” as Syria enters “a phase of recovery and reconstruction, which must be reflected in Lebanon.”
They are also working on conditions that enable Syrian refugees in Lebanon to return. Shaibani is also meeting with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, and Foreign Minister Yousef Raji.
Meanwhile, in Lebanon on Saturday evening, Hezbollah condemned what it called “the Israeli aggression on the Al-Musaylih area in southern Lebanon, considering it ‘part of the repeated and deliberate targeting of civilians and economic infrastructure, and to prevent people from returning to their normal lives,’” Al-Akhbar reported in Lebanon.
Al-Akhbar is considered to be sympathetic to Hezbollah. Meanwhile, Lebanese parliament member from Hezbollah Ali Fayyad also said that "the [Israeli] occupation…cannot be a pretext for relinquishing sovereign rights."