🔶 Syria’s foreign minister rejects military intervention in Lebanon during a trip to Beirut Asaad al-Shaibani, Syria’s foreign minister, emphasized in a meeting with Joseph Aoun, the President of Lebanon, that Damascus has no intention of any kind of military intervention in Lebanon’s affairs. Al-Shaibani invited the Lebanese president to visit Syria; a trip that, if carried out, would be the first visit by a Lebanese president to Syria during the new period of Damascus’s rule. During his trip to Beirut, the Syrian foreign minister met for the first time with Nabih Berri, the Speaker of the Lebanese parliament and also one of the allies of Hezbollah. After the meeting, he said he does not rule out the possibility of dialogue with Hezbollah in the future. Donald Trump, the U.S. president, had previously said that Syria “can handle Hezbollah” and criticized Israel’s strategy in the war with this Iran-backed group. However, Ahmad al-Sharaa, the temporary president of Syria, who came to power after the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s government in December 2024, has explicitly announced that he has no intention of intervening in Lebanon or reopening old wounds.