Lebanon said on Thursday it was looking forward to having the best neighbourly relations with Syria, in its first official message to the new administration in Damascus.
Lebanese Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib, Reuters/Guglielmo Mangiapane
Lebanon said on Thursday it was looking forward to having the best neighbourly relations with Syria, in its first official message to the new administration in Damascus.
Lebanese Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib passed the message to his Syrian counterpart, Asaad Hassan al-Shibani, in a phone call, the Lebanese Foreign Ministry said on X.
Lebanon's Iran-backed Hezbollah played a major part propping up Syria's ousted President Bashar al-Assad through years of war, before bringing its fighters back to Lebanon over the last year to fight in a bruising war with Israel - a redeployment which weakened Syrian government lines.
Under Assad, Hezbollah used Syria to bring in weapons and other military equipment from Iran, through Iraq and Syria and into Lebanon. But on Dec. 6, anti-Assad fighters seized the border with Iraq and cut off that route, and two days later, Islamist rebels captured the capital Damascus.
Syria's new Islamist de-facto leader Ahmed al-Sharaa is seeking to establish relations with Arab and Western leaders after toppling Assad.
Reporting by Jana Choukeir
U.S. President Donald Trump expressed confidence that an agreement could soon be reached to end the Iran war and urged the Tehran-aligned Hezbollah group to hold its fire as a 10-day truce went in to effect between Lebanon and Israel.
Lebanese Finance Minister Yassine Jaber on Thursday said his government had good meetings this week with the International Monetary Fund and remained committed to working toward a lending program.
A 10-day ceasefire between Lebanon and Israel went into effect on Thursday and President Donald Trump said the next meeting between the United States and Iran may take place over the weekend, adding to optimism that the Iran war could be nearing an end.
To make this website run properly and to improve your experience, we use cookies. For more detailed information, please check our Cookie Policy.
Necessary cookies enable core functionality. The website cannot function properly without these cookies, and can only be disabled by changing your browser preferences.