Lebanon’s Mikati to meet Syrian leader al-Sharaa in Damascus, Lebanese sources say

Lebanese caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati will meet Syria’s de facto leader Ahmed al-Sharaa in Damascus on Saturday, two Lebanese sources say, becoming the first head of government to visit Syria’s capital since the fall of Bashar al-Assad.

The visit will also be the first by a Lebanese premier to neighboring Syria in 15 years.

Lebanon’s new president, Joseph Aoun, said on Thursday there was a historic opportunity for “a serious and equal dialogue” with Syria, which had big sway over its neighbor during much of the Assad family’s five decades in power, maintaining troops there for 29 years until 2005 — a role many Lebanese opposed.

Sharaa, leader of the rebel forces that toppled Assad on December 8, pledged last month — during a meeting in Damascus with influential Lebanese Druze politician Walid Jumblatt — that Syria would not interfere in Lebanon’s affairs.

Mikati last week received a phone invitation from Sharaa to visit Syria. Lebanese Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib, who is expected to accompany Mikati, said during a Dec. 26 call with his Syrian counterpart that Beirut was looking forward to the best neighborly relations with Syria.

The last Lebanese premier to visit Damascus was Saad al-Hariri, who went there in 2010.

Ties between Damascus and Beirut have often been fraught since they became independent states in the 1940s.

The Iran-backed Lebanese Shiite terror group Hezbollah played a major part in propping up Assad during Syria’s civil war, fighting the Sunni Islamist insurgents who toppled him.