Lebanon hopes for neighbourly relations in first message to new Syria government

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.