For the first time since the fall of the Assad regime, Syrian new Foreign Minister Asaad Hassan al-Shaibani visited Beirut, discussing Lebanese-Syrian relations as well as outstanding issues between the two countries - such as the issue of the Syrian detainees in Lebanon, whose release Damascus demands
Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad Shaibani – accompanied by Justice Minister Mazhar al-Wais, Head of Syrian Intelligence Hussein al-Salama, and Assistant Interior Minister Maj. Gen. Abdel Qader Tahan – arrived in Beirut on Friday, October 10, on an official one-day visit. This came at the invitation of Lebanese Foreign Minister, Youssef Rajji, and aimed to discuss the reestablishment of full diplomatic relations and several bilateral files between Lebanon and Syria, including the status of roughly 2,000 Syrian nationals detained in Lebanese prisons, border security and demarcation, locating Lebanese nationals missing in Syria for years, and facilitating the return of Syrian refugees.
Following Shaibani’s arrival, he headed directly to the Foreign Ministry to meet Rajji, before visiting President Joseph Aoun at Baabda Palace and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam at the Grand Serail.
Today’s meeting – which was reportedly meant to take place in the summer – has marked the first official visit by a senior Syrian official since Islamist-led opponents overthrew the Assad regime in Damascus. It was the first visit of a Syrian Foreign Minister to Lebanon since Walid al-Moallem’s trip to Beirut in 2008, signaling a potential reset in Lebanese-Syrian relations after over a decade of mutual tensions: from the 29-year Syrian occupation of Lebanese territories, to the more recent intervention of the Lebanese Hezbollah in the Syrian civil war – which was meant to fight, alongside Assad’s forces, against Islamist militants. A choice that the current Syrian leadership still resents for.
Lebanese-Syrian Higher Council suspended
The Lebanese Foreign Ministry was officially informed via the Syrian embassy in Beirut of Syria’s decision to suspend the work of the Lebanese-Syrian Higher Council and to limit all communication between the two countries to official diplomatic channels. The Council, founded in May 1991 under Presidents Elias Hrawi and Hafez al-Assad – at the end of Lebanon’s 15-year civil war to which Syrian occupation survived for another 14 years, until the 2005 withdrawal – symbolized not only decades of institutional coordination, but also, and mainly, Syria’s hegemony over its smaller neighbor.
Having been largely inactive in recent years – with anti-Assad Lebanese political parties having long called for its dissolution -, the Council’s role started to decline after the assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri, Syria’s withdrawal months later, and the 2008 opening of the Syrian embassy in Beirut, which marked Syria’s first official recognition of Lebanon as an autonomous state.
Commenting on the matter, Rajji announced that both sides are now committed to mutual respect and non-interference, highlighting how relations between Lebanon and Syria have finally become direct through diplomatic channels. On the other side, Shaibani added that Syria too seeks to turn the page on past tensions: “We were both victims of the previous regime’s mismanagement of relations with Lebanon. Our goal today is to shift from a strained security-based relationship to one that is economic and political, serving the interests of both peoples,” he stated.
Towards a new diplomacy
After meeting with Shaibani at the Baabda Presidential Palace, Lebanon’s President Joseph Aoun said Syria’s decision to suspend the Higher Council necessitates the strengthening of diplomatic relations. “In this context, we await the appointment of a new Syrian ambassador to Lebanon to follow up on all matters through the Lebanese and Syrian embassies in Beirut and Damascus,” said Aoun, according to a statement shared by the Presidency on X.
“We have a long road ahead, and when intentions are sincere, the shared interests of our two brotherly nations rise above all other considerations. We have no choice but to agree on what guarantees those interests,” the statement added.
Shaibani said he expected all issues hindering the full normalization of ties between Lebanon and Syria would be resolved “in a way that benefits both peoples,” noting that “there are matters that may be of greater concern to the Syrian side, and others that may be more important to Lebanon. We placed all these issues on the table for discussion, and we want to move beyond the past.”
For his part, Rajji commented that there was “a commitment from both the Syrian and Lebanese sides, and a respect for the Lebanese state without interference in its internal affairs, and this is a positive path.”
Since the fall of Assad in December 2024, two Lebanese Prime Ministers – the former one, Najib Miqati, and the current Nawaf Salam – have visited Syria; however, although Aoun and Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa also held talks on the sidelines of an Arab summit in Egypt in March, no visits are currently scheduled between the heads of state of the two countries.
Yet, in early September, a Syrian delegation, which included two former Cabinet ministers and the head of Syria’s National Commission for Missing Persons, visited Beirut: on that occasion, Lebanon and Syria agreed to establish two committees to address outstanding key issues.
Among them, the two countries have already signed an agreement to demarcate the 375-kilometre border and enhance security coordination, aiming to prevent disputes and curb smuggling and other illicit activities. Saudi Arabia is sponsoring the border delineation and security threats’ talks, and the deal was signed in Jeddah last March, after border clashes left 10 dead.
Shaibani and his delegation also discussed the file of Syrian refugees in Lebanon – estimated between 1.5 and 2 million, though the United Nations refugee agency says more than 294,000 have returned home this year. “We are working on the return of Syrian refugees from Lebanon as part of an internationally coordinated plan,” said Shaibani, ensuring the refugee issue would be solved gradually. “There are plans that we are discussing now, with international support, for the dignified and stable return of refugees,” he added.
While expressing gratitude to Lebanon for hosting Syrians during the war despite the difficult economic conditions the country has been facing, no comment was made on the treatment Syrians were forced to in the ‘hosting’ country for more than a decade, including abuse, discrimination, an escalating campaign of violence, and potential deportation.
To give an example, up until last year, Lebanese authorities had been confiscating motorcycles belonging to Syrians lacking residency permits as part of a series of discriminatory orders issued by former Interior Minister Bassam Mawlawi. This was just one example of the rampant violence, harassment, and insecurity Syrian refugees have been suffering in Lebanon over the past decade. For the second consecutive year, in the leadup to the annual Brussels donor Conference for Syria, which took place on May 27, 2024, Syrian refugees have been the target of a campaign of hate speech, discriminatory policies, and the very real threat of deportation. Syrian-owned businesses have been shuttered and workers arrested for lacking legal documents, municipalities across the country have cracked down on Syrian residents with thousands facing eviction, and tensions between the Lebanese host community and Syrian refugees ended up being a daily issue.
Moreover, since the beginning of 2024, reports began circulating that the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) and the Directorate of General Security (GSO) have resumed raids and deportations against Syrian refugee communities, with international and local NGOs documenting several deportations. While Lebanon has not ratified the 1951 Refugee Convention, the state is still bound by the customary international law principle of non-refoulement, which prohibits the deportation of any person who faces the risk of persecution in their home country. Despite this obligation, there have been several high-profile cases of Syrian refugees who were activists, opposition members, or defectors who have been deported or threatened with deportation, even though their lives may have been at risk, as they faced torture, arbitrary detention, or enforced disappearance in Syria.
The legal limbo of the Syrian detainees
On top of that, stuck in a decade-old legal limbo, hundreds of Syrian detainees in Lebanon experience for the first time the possible hope to be released from the country’s most infamous prisons.
Highlighting the significance of the issue, Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa had committed to personally supervising the detainees’ case. However, although after his visit to post-liberation Syria, former Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Miqati declared that the detainees would be transferred back – and the current Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam addressed the same issue during his trip to Damascus -, the Lebanese government is currently still discussing the matter’s extremes. Many of the Syrians held in Lebanon remain in fact jailed without trial, while about 800 are detained for security-related reasons, including involvement in attacks and shootings. The new Islamist-led rulers in Damascus have for months pressed for their release – while Beirut has said that all those involved in attacks on Lebanese security forces will not be released, yet has vowed to speed up the trials of detainees who have remained behind bars for years.
A delay that weighs on the shoulders of inmates who, in a sign of protest, on February 11, 2025 have declared for the prison of Roumieh an open-ended hunger strike to denounce their harsh detention conditions and to demand their repatriation to Syria.
According to official figures provided by Interior Minister Ahmad Hajjar – and as previously analysed by NOW Lebanon -, Syrians account for nearly 29 percent of the total number of detainees in Lebanon, in total reaching around 9,000 detainees. Justice Minister Adel Nassar furtherly added that among the Syrian detainees in Lebanon, 1,329 have been awaiting trial for years. Among those already convicted: 87 were found guilty of murder, 82 of terrorism-related crimes and the killings of Lebanese soldiers, 79 of theft, and 141 of other offenses, including drug trafficking and illegal entry into Lebanon.
The latest of many hunger strikes came this time in the context of worsening humanitarian conditions in Lebanese prisons, where Syrian detainees face continuous violations of their fundamental rights, having been subjected to arbitrary detention for years without any official response to their demands, as it has been testified and documented by humanitarian organizations and lawyers. In a statement published by NGO Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) in February, accounts from detainees and their families revealed that many of those on hunger strike are suffering from a severe deterioration in their physical and psychical health, due to overcrowding, lack of medical and food supplies, spread of infectious diseases, and the denial of contact with the families – especially in the prison of Roumieh. Among them, the statement reveals, at least 190 Syrian inmates were detained for participating in the 2011 popular uprisings in Syria: defectors from the former Assad regime forces and refugees, imprisoned for more than a decade without having been granted fair trials. Many have in fact been subjected to unfair trials before Lebanese military courts or military investigative judges, based on confessions extracted through torture and threats: coerced confessions that led to them being charged with terrorism, resulting in severe prison sentences or indefinite pretrial detention.
But if until last fall Lebanese officials were merely insisting that they be returned to Syria – appealing to the cost of maintenance and the dramatic issue of prison congestion, 323 percent overcrowded – now that not only the detainees and their families, but also the government authorities finally have the same demands, it is only in Lebanon’s hands to end this legal arm-wrestling played for too long on the bodies of Syrian detainees. Even the ‘Islamist’ or ‘terrorist’ file, if not properly addressed, could leave behind, among some culprits, dozens of innocent people, still waiting for trial.
