For decades, such meetings would have been almost unimaginable.
During his recent visit to Beirut, Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani met Lebanon’s three top state leaders as well as political figures who had long stood at the forefront of opposition to Syrian influence in Lebanon, including Samir Geagea, head of the Lebanese Forces party, and Sami Gemayel, leader of the Kataeb Party.
The visit—and the meetings and public gestures that accompanied it—reflected an effort by Syria’s new leadership to chart a different course in its relationship with Lebanon, one based on mutual respect for sovereignty and the management of bilateral disputes through official state institutions, rather than the approach that shaped ties between the two countries for decades.
But translating that rhetoric into reality remains a formidable challenge. The relationship is burdened by a complex political and security legacy carried over from Syria’s military presence and political dominance in Lebanon before 2005. Those include unresolved issues ranging from missing and detained persons to border demarcation, cross-border smuggling, Syrian refugees and prisoners.
According to information obtained by MBN from individuals who participated in al-Shaibani’s meetings with Lebanese political figures and religious leaders, much of the substantive discussion focused on mechanisms for addressing these long-standing issues while establishing a new framework for bilateral relations.
Behind Closed Doors
Al-Shaibani’s visit came shortly after U.S. President Donald Trump suggested that Syria could play a role in helping address Lebanon’s internal challenges.
The Syrian foreign minister delivered a different message publicly, stressing that Damascus had no intention of interfering in Lebanese affairs. He said Syria was committed to “moving beyond the troubled legacy suffered by both peoples” and building “a new and prosperous relationship that will benefit future generations.”
Despite widespread speculation before the visit, the issue of Hezbollah’s weapons did not dominate the discussions.
Sources familiar with the meetings told MBN that talks instead centered on restructuring relations between Beirut and Damascus and addressing decades-old unresolved issues, rather than the topics that had dominated media coverage ahead of the visit.
At a meeting held at the headquarters of the Kataeb Party, a Lebanese Christian party long opposed to Syrian influence, the most striking aspect for the Lebanese delegation, according to former Lebanese lawmaker and minister Eli Marouni, was the language al-Shaibani used in addressing his hosts.
“It was clear that this was now a relationship between two states,” Marouni told MBN, describing a departure from the approach that characterized the previous era.
According to Marouni, al-Shaibani affirmed that Syria respects Lebanon’s sovereignty, territorial integrity and economy, and said Damascus “harbors no hostile intentions toward any Lebanese party and has no intention of entering Lebanese territory from any direction.”
One of the central issues discussed was the fate of Lebanese citizens who disappeared or were detained in Syria. The issue remains one of the most contentious aspects of Syrian-Lebanese relations, dating back to the Lebanese civil war and the subsequent period of Syrian military presence in Lebanon.
Marouni said the Kataeb Party urged Syria’s new authorities to clarify the fate of those missing after years of uncertainty, including Boutros Khawand, a member of the party’s political bureau.
Al-Shaibani, in turn, raised the issue of missing Syrians, noting that Syrians had also disappeared in Lebanon, while thousands more remain unaccounted for inside Syria. He said the Syrian authorities were working to uncover the truth and “close this open wound for both peoples.”
Although Syria’s former government released two groups of detainees in 1998 and 2000, Lebanese advocacy organizations have long maintained that hundreds of Lebanese remained imprisoned in Syrian jails, claims consistently denied by Damascus.
After the fall of the government of Bashar al-Assad in December 2024 and the opening of Syrian prisons, the issue resurfaced amid continued uncertainty over the fate of hundreds of Lebanese detainees. A Lebanese emergency committee established to investigate the matter documented 725 Lebanese who had been detained in Syria.
The talks also addressed the return of Syrian refugees.
Marouni said the Kataeb Party emphasized the need to accelerate refugees’ return to their towns and villages, while al-Shaibani said facilitating the return of Syrians was likewise a priority for Damascus, requiring Lebanon to establish a practical mechanism to translate that shared objective into concrete action.
According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, more than half a million Syrians have returned from Lebanon since the fall of the Assad government. Lebanon, however, continues to host hundreds of thousands of Syrians, keeping the issue at the forefront of the two countries’ political and economic agenda.
The discussions also covered ways to organize economic, social, health and educational cooperation, signaling a shared desire to restore Syrian-Lebanese relations to an institutional footing, away from the security channels that dominated much of the relationship in previous decades.
In his meeting with al-Shaibani, Lebanese President Joseph Aoun stressed the need to build relations based on cooperation, mutual respect and non-interference in each other’s internal affairs. He also welcomed continued security coordination, particularly on border control and efforts to combat smuggling.
A Different Conversation in Tripoli
Al-Shaibani concluded his visit in Tripoli at Dar al-Fatwa, Lebanon’s highest Sunni authority, in a city whose residents were among the strongest supporters of the Syrian uprising.
Crowds gathered outside Dar al-Fatwa to welcome him, while discussions focused heavily on Lebanese detainees imprisoned because of their support for the Syrian revolution.
Lawmaker and former security chief Ashraf Rifi, who attended the meeting, said Syrian officials raised the issue of Syrian prisoners in Lebanon, noting that the Lebanese government had already begun implementing a prisoner transfer agreement under which convicted inmates are transferred to Syria.
Rifi told MBN that al-Shaibani also informed participants that he had discussed with Lebanese officials the cases of Lebanese citizens detained for supporting the Syrian revolution, stressing the need to distinguish them from those convicted of ordinary criminal offenses. According to Rifi, Lebanese authorities told the Syrian minister that the matter remains under review.
The cases of Lebanese detainees linked to support for the Syrian uprising—many of whom are classified as “Islamist detainees”—remain among Lebanon’s most controversial judicial files. Some have received life sentences or death sentences, while others have spent years in pretrial detention without a final verdict. According to Nadim Baydoun, head of media affairs at Dar al-Fatwa’s Prisoners and Families Welfare Committee, there are 168 detainees in that category.
Beirut and Damascus have already begun implementing their prisoner transfer agreement. Syria received 132 prisoners in March and another 128 in June 2026.
The agreement, however, applies only to convicted prisoners and excludes detainees whose trials remain pending. It also extends beyond the category of Islamist detainees, while proposed legislation granting a broader general amnesty remains stalled in the Lebanese Parliament.
Rifi said the visit reflected a clear shift in Syria’s official rhetoric toward Lebanon.
“Al-Shaibani used language we were not accustomed to hearing from Syrian officials,” he said. “It recognized Lebanon as an independent and sovereign state, whereas the previous regime viewed Lebanon as an extension of Syria.”
The Next Phase
While humanitarian and judicial issues occupied much of the discussions, the visit’s most tangible outcome was the signing of an agreement establishing a new Lebanese-Syrian Joint Higher Committee, intended to place bilateral relations on a permanent institutional footing.
Al-Shaibani said the committee would include representatives from relevant ministries and oversee economic, investment and trade cooperation, in addition to security coordination and broader cooperation between Beirut and Damascus.
Political analyst Jean al-Faghali said the committee effectively replaces the Lebanese-Syrian Higher Council, which was created under the 1991 Treaty of Brotherhood, Cooperation and Coordination and became one of the defining institutions of Syria’s political dominance over Lebanon.
“The new committee will become the official framework through which relations and communication between the two countries are managed in the coming period,” al-Faghali told MBN.
Its creation, however, does not in itself resolve the outstanding disputes.
Marouni said implementation of the understandings reached during the visit—and demonstrating genuine political commitment—would depend on the committee’s work.
Al-Faghali added that the committee’s success would require more than political will. It would also depend on legal and administrative reforms capable of implementing future agreements.
“Syria is moving quickly to modernize its laws,” he said. “Lebanon is not moving at the same pace, and that could hinder implementation.”
In the end, al-Shaibani’s visit did not produce immediate solutions to issues that have accumulated between Beirut and Damascus over decades. It did, however, mark the beginning of a different approach to managing the relationship. Whether that political shift results in lasting change will depend on both governments’ ability to translate it into concrete action.
Adapted and translated from the original Arabic.
