Syria and Lebanon to boost border, anti-terror controls

DAMASCUS (AFP) — Syria and Lebanon decided on Monday to boost border controls and anti-terrorism coordination, as the two neighbours took a new step to strengthen ties since diplomatic relations were established.

The decision came during the first visit to Damascus by a Lebanese interior minister since the 2005 assassination of Lebanon’s five-time former premier Rafiq Hariri.

Syrian Interior Minister Bassam Abdul Majid in talks with his Lebanese counterpart Ziad Baroud agreed to set up a commission “to put into place the basis of coordination in the fight against terrorism and crime.”

According to a statement read out to reporters after the meeting, the commission would also be tasked with establishing a joint mechanism to police the border.

Baroud was accompanied by Lebanese security chiefs Wafiq Jizzini and Ashraf Rifi.

In Beirut, Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, a leading anti-Syrian figure, criticised the decision to form a joint security commission.

It could lead to “renewed Syrian interference in the affairs of Lebanon,” he warned in an editorial due to appear on Tuesday of his Progressive Socialist Party’s weekly newspaper.

The visit comes almost three months after Lebanese President Michel Sleiman made a landmark visit to Damascus and less than a month after Syria and Lebanon decided to establish diplomatic relations for the first time.

Cross-border smuggling figured high on the agenda of Baroud’s talks, after Syria deployed reinforcements along its border with Lebanon in what it terms an anti-smuggling operation.

Abdul Majid and Baroud discussed means to boost links between their ministries and the two countries’ security services.

The two ministers also reviewed the “confessions” broadcast by Syrian state television last week by alleged Fatah al-Islam militants for a deadly September 27 car bombing in Damascus.

In the broadcast, the suspects said that Fatah al-Islam, an Al-Qaeda-linked group which battled the Lebanese army last year, had links to the anti-Syrian bloc of Saad Hariri, the parliamentary majority leader in Beirut.

Baroud became the first Lebanese interior minister to visit Damascus since Syrian troops pulled out of Lebanon in April 2005 after a 29-year deployment, following charges of Syrian involvement in the murder of Rafiq Hariri.

Damascus has repeatedly denied the charge.