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Lebanese Caretaker PM Will Meet Syria's Sharaa in Damascus on Saturday

FILED - 25 June 2024, Lebanon, Beirut: Lebanon's Prime Minister Najib Mikati attends a meeting in Beirut. Photo: Hannes P Albert/dpa
FILED - 25 June 2024, Lebanon, Beirut: Lebanon's Prime Minister Najib Mikati attends a meeting in Beirut. Photo: Hannes P Albert/dpa
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Lebanese Caretaker PM Will Meet Syria's Sharaa in Damascus on Saturday

FILED - 25 June 2024, Lebanon, Beirut: Lebanon's Prime Minister Najib Mikati attends a meeting in Beirut. Photo: Hannes P Albert/dpa
FILED - 25 June 2024, Lebanon, Beirut: Lebanon's Prime Minister Najib Mikati attends a meeting in Beirut. Photo: Hannes P Albert/dpa

Lebanese caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati will meet Syria's de facto leader Ahmed al-Sharaa in Damascus on Saturday, a Lebanese source told Reuters on Friday.
Mikati had received an invitation from Sharaa over the phone last week to visit Syria.

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Cyprus Leader Becomes First Foreign Dignitary to Visit Lebanon’s New President

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun (R) meets with Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides (L), at the presidential palace in Baabda, east of Beirut, Lebanon, 10 January 2025. (EPA)
Lebanese President Joseph Aoun (R) meets with Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides (L), at the presidential palace in Baabda, east of Beirut, Lebanon, 10 January 2025. (EPA)
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Cyprus Leader Becomes First Foreign Dignitary to Visit Lebanon’s New President

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun (R) meets with Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides (L), at the presidential palace in Baabda, east of Beirut, Lebanon, 10 January 2025. (EPA)
Lebanese President Joseph Aoun (R) meets with Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides (L), at the presidential palace in Baabda, east of Beirut, Lebanon, 10 January 2025. (EPA)

Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides has become the foreign head of state and first foreign dignitary to pay an official visit to Lebanon's new President Joseph Aoun.

Aoun, the former commander of the Lebanese army, was elected Thursday by the Lebanese parliament to fill a more than two-year vacuum in the presidency.

“I wanted to be the first to visit President Aoun and show, not in words but in actions that Cyprus stands by Lebanon and the Lebanese people,” Christodoulides told reporters afterward.

They discussed energy, security, trade and shipping, his office said in a written statement.

Cyprus and Lebanon have had close relations for decades. In recent years the two countries have been involved in intense discussions over border control, as many Syrian refugees living in Lebanon — and an increasing number of Lebanese since the country's major economic crisis began in 2019 — sought to reach Cyprus by sea in smuggler boats.

Cyprus is less than 200 kilometers (130 miles) from the Lebanese capital Beirut and they share maritime borders in waters where undersea natural gas deposits are believed to lie.