BEIRUT: Lebanon approved yesterday Syria’s nominee for its first ambassador to Beirut, five months after the two neighbors established diplomatic ties for the first time, an official said.
“President Michel Sleiman on Tuesday approved the nomination of Ali Abdel Karim Ali as the Syrian Arab Republic’s ambassador to Beirut,” the official in the president’s office said.
Lebanon’s ambassador to Damascus, career diplomat Michel El-Khoury, was named at the start of the year and an embassy was opened in the Syrian capital earlier this month. After several years of strained relations, Lebanon and its former powerbroker agreed to establish diplomatic ties in October for the first time since their independence 60 years ago.
Syria pulled out its troops from Lebanon after almost 30 years of political and military domination in April 2005 following the assassination of former Lebanese premier Rafik Hariri.
Many in Lebanon pointed the finger at Damascus for the murder and a spate of attacks against anti-Syrian figures since, but Syria has strongly denied any involvement.
Ali, who was born in 1953, has been ambassador to Kuwait since November 2004 and has also served as the head of Syrian state radio and television and the official SANA news agency. In 1998, the married father of four published a collection of poems.
Meanwhile, an Italian judge will head up a special UN court set up to try suspects in a series of attacks in Lebanon, including the assassination of Hariri, officials said yesterday. Antonio Cassese, was elected to head the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL).
Cassese was born in 1937 and was the first president of the International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia from 1993 to 1997.
The STL was created by a 2007 UN resolution and began work on March 1 at Leidschendam, near The Hague.
Besides Cassese and a Belgian judge Daniel Fransen, responsible for pre-trial legal preparations, nine other judges will be appointed to the court, a tribunal statement said.
