Lebanon’s PM holds talks with Syrian president 🚨
It’s been a bit over a year since Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam last met with Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa, and a lot has changed since then.
This visit is about re-establishing relations and discussing cooperation on a few key issues, particularly in the context of the wider regional war, Israel’s campaign in Lebanon, and it’s continued occupation and operations in southern Syria.
On the table, number one, border and security issues. There has long been a problem with the smuggling of drugs and arms between Lebanon and Syria, notably because Syria used to be part of the land route between Iran and its ally Hezbollah.
That decreased massively after the fall of the Assad regime, but in the last couple of months, Syrian authorities have announced a number of operations and arrests, and the dismantling of tunnels, which they said were used for the attempted smuggling of weapons into Lebanon.
Significantly, in the last week, they’ve also announced the arrest of several members of what they described as Hezbollah cells who were attempting attacks on the Syrian government; and last month, there were also arrests of Hezbollah cells that were said to be attempting to fire rockets into northern Israel.
The governments of Syria and Lebanon find themselves aligned at this moment on trying to rein in Hezbollah.
Also on the table is cooperation on the issues of trade, the economy, and the return of Syrian prisoners – more than 2,000 of whom remain detained inside Lebanon, with many accused of ‘terrorism’ offences – and the issue of Syrian refugees in Lebanon.
Despite a spike in returns due to the war there, there are still more than 1 million Syrians displaced in Lebanon.
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