BEIRUT (AP) — Lebanon’s relationship with Syria is “radically different” since the fall of former President Bashar Assad, Lebanon’s top minister in charge of managing the country’s relations with its neighbor said Tuesday.
“Under the Assad regime, Lebanon was de facto under Syrian tutelage. The Syrian regime intervened in internal affairs in so many ways,” Deputy Prime Minister Tarek Mitri told The Associated Press. “The current Syrian government is neither interested in hegemony over Lebanon nor interfering in our internal affairs.”
Mitri spoke days after the Lebanese cabinet approved a treaty with Syria under which Lebanon will transfer more than 300 prisoners sentenced to serve their prison terms in Syria.
Mitri said the transfers would start in a few weeks.
Syrian prisoners
Lebanon and Syria have a complicated history, with grievances on both sides. Many Lebanese resent the decades-long occupation of their country by Syrian forces that ended in 2005. Many Syrians resent the role played by the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah when it entered Syria’s civil war in defense of Assad’s government.
Despite improving relations, the two countries have faced a number of thorny issues since the fall of Assad, particularly the issue of Syrian prisoners held in Lebanese prisons.
There are about 2,500 Syrian prisoners in Lebanese prisons, some of whom are being held on charges related to their involvement in armed opposition groups that have tried to topple Assad — in some cases, the same groups that now rule Syria.
Most of the prisoners to be transferred under the deal approved last Friday have not been convicted of violent crimes, Mitri said. Those convicted of “major crimes” including “murder, fighting the Lebanese army and rape” are eligible for transfer only if they have already served 7.5 years of their sentence in Lebanon.
Another treaty is underway under which Syrian prisoners awaiting trial could be transferred to their country, Mitri said, but it will need to be ratified by the Lebanese parliament and is likely to take longer.
The two countries have also formed a working group to investigate the fate of Lebanese citizens missing in Syria and Syrians who have disappeared in Lebanon, he said. Many of the missing Lebanese are believed to have been imprisoned – and possibly died in detention – during Assad’s iron-fisted rule.
Since Assad’s fall in a blitzkrieg led by Islamist rebel groups in December 2024, reports have circulated that Assad-era officials who have taken refuge in Lebanon are plotting attacks against the new government.
Mitri said Lebanon has not received from Syria a list of names of people it wants to extradite and has found no evidence of armed plots.
While there are “middle-ranking leaders” from the former Syrian army and the Assad-era ruling Baath party now living in Lebanon, Mitri said they are “not militarily organized or militarily active”.
Lebanese security agencies “investigated those areas where there is a suspicion that there may be former (official) Syrian soldiers organizing to prepare subversive operations in Syria” and found “no evidence of this,” he said.
Hezbollah’s weapons
The more difficult relationship Lebanon faces is with its neighbor to the south.
Despite a US-brokered ceasefire that nominally ended the last Israel-Hezbollah war in November 2024, Israel continues to strike Lebanon almost daily and occupies five strategic hilltops along the border. Israel accused Hezbollah of trying to rebuild.
The Lebanese army announced last month that it had completed the first phase of a plan to disarm non-state groups, including Hezbollah, in the border area south of the Litani River. Future phases will progressively cover the areas north of the river. The army is expected to present its plan for the second phase later this week after its commander, General Rodolphe Haykal, returns from a trip to the US.
Hezbollah insists the ceasefire only requires it to end its military presence south of Litani and has said it will not discuss disarmament in the rest of the country until Israel stops its attacks.
Mitri said moving forward with the disarmament plan “is not contingent on steps from Israel.”
“But of course, as long as Israel does not abide by the cease-fire agreement – and it has not for the past year and three months – this complicates the army’s work,” he said.
“Neutral force, internationally mandated”
While there has been speculation that Lebanon and Israel could move to political negotiations and eventually the normalization of diplomatic relations, Mitri said their talks currently remain limited to the ceasefire monitoring committee, which also includes representatives of the US, France and the UN peacekeeping force known as UNIFIL.
“There is ‘full compliance with the agreement – meaning the withdrawal of the Israelis from the Lebanese outposts they have occupied, the cessation of their strikes, the release or surrender of the Lebanese prisoners (held in Israel), then there could be other issues to negotiate,’ such as the demarcation of the land border between the two countries,” he said.
Another looming question is the future of the border area after UNIFIL’s mandate expires at the end of this year.
Mitri said a number of proposals are under discussion for a successor force.
From Lebanon’s perspective, he said: “We need a neutral, internationally mandated force to observe and ensure that whatever is agreed upon in the negotiations is fully respected by the parties and documents violations.”