Suleiman in Syria as Lebanon blast kills 18
DAMASCUS (Agencies)
Lebanese President Michel Suleiman arrived in Syria on Wednesday for landmark talks with his counterpart Bashar al-Assad hours after a bomb in northern Lebanon left 18 people dead.
Lebanese parliament speaker Nabih Berri, a stalwart of the Syrian-backed opposition in Beirut, said the timing of the bombing reflects efforts "to prevent the improvement of Lebanese-Syrian relations."
Syria and Lebanon have not had diplomatic ties since independence from French colonial power 60 years ago. Assad and Suleiman agreed to establish them during talks last month in Paris.
Former army chief Suleiman is the first Lebanese president to visit Damascus since Syria withdrew its troops from Lebanon in April 2005 ending almost three decades of military domination of its "sister" nation.
The pullout came two months after the assassination in Beirut of Lebanese ex-premier Rafiq Hariri, for which Damascus has denied any responsibility despite accusations by Lebanese anti-Syrian groups.
Suleiman's visit aims to redefine ties between Beirut and Damascus which have been on the decline since the Hariri murder.
It comes a day after Beirut's Western-backed national unity government won a much-delayed parliamentary vote of confidence after stormy debates among rival MPs on the thorny issue of weapons held by Hezbollah.
Suleiman was elected in May as part of an agreement struck in Doha between the pro- and anti-Syrian camps in Lebanon after an 18-month political crisis which degenerated into deadly factional violence.Hours before Suleiman flew in to Damascus for the two-day visit, a bomb exploded in the northern Lebanese port city of Tripoli, killing at least 18 people, nine of them soldiers, and wounding 40 others.
No one has claimed responsibility for the attack in the region which has seen both sectarian fighting and clashes between the army and Islamist militants.
At least 22 people have been killed in Tripoli in recent months in fighting between Sunni and Alawite gunmen in violence linked to lingering political tensions in Lebanon.
Lebanese security forces fought Sunni Islamist militants in Tripoli last year at the start of a insurrection by the al Qaeda-inspired Fatah al-Islam group, which was based at the nearby Nahr al-Bared Palestinian refugee camp.
The army lost 170 soldiers in the fighting.