BEIRUT - With an end in sight to almost 30 years of Syria's military presence in Lebanon, the anti-Syrian opposition says special ties between Damascus and Beirut will remain but on a new footing.
UN special envoy Terje Roed-Larsen announced after talks in Damascus on Sunday that the Syrian leadership promised the withdrawal of its troops and intelligence services would be completed by April 30.
The pledge falls in line with both UN Security Council Resolution 1559 demanding all foreign troops be pulled out of Lebanon and with the Taef accord which ended the country's devastating 1975-1990 civil war.
Syria first deployed its army in Lebanon 29 years ago as a buffer force during the early stages of the conflict, turning into the key power-broker in its tiny neighbour.
"By setting a date, the Syrians are showing they respect international laws," Druze MP Walid Jumblatt, a key opposition leader, told the satellite news channel Al-Arabiya in an interview aired late Sunday.
He gave only a cautious welcome, however, to plans to send a UN monitoring team to verify that a full withdrawal is carried out.
Such a mission should not turn Lebanon into a "neutral country" cut off from its surroundings when an Arab-Israeli peace settlement has yet to be reached, Jumblatt said.
"The security of Lebanon is linked to that of Syria, and vice versa. We do not want, God forbid, Lebanon to become a centre for plotting against Syria," he said.
Elias Atallah, another opposition chief, also hailed the speedy pullout timetable, which follows international pressure on Damascus and huge anti-Syrian protests in Beirut since former premier Rafiq Hariri's murder in February.
"The Syrian timetable is very positive. It is in the interests of Lebanon and Syria," he said.
Pointing out that Damascus and Beirut remain linked by a 1991 cooperation treaty, Atallah said he hoped Syria would in future play a "positive rather than dominant" political and economic role in Lebanon.
The opposition to the Syrian-backed authorities in Beirut, including forces which were mortal foes during the war such as the Druze and Maronite Christians, agree on the need to redefine ties with Damascus.
Their campaign picked up momentum after the mid-February assassination of Harari, who had himself sought a new modus vivendi with Damascus, in a Beirut bomb blast which the opposition blamed on the government and Syria.
The announcement of the withdrawal timetable was seen in Beirut as a turning point.
"It is a positive development in the Lebanese crisis. It meets one of the main demands of the opposition," said Christian MP Nassib Lahoud. "We hope it turns a new page in Lebanese-Syrian relations on an equal basis."
And Syria's acceptance of the UN-proposed international supervision of the pullout added a legal dimension to the operation, he said.
From a high of 40,000 during the civil war, Syria's deployment had been cut back in previous redeployments to a level of 14,000 troops when Hariri was killed. It has since thinned down to an estimated 8,000 men.
But Syrian Foreign Minister Faruq Shara made it clear on Sunday that the fundamentals remain unchanged, at least for Damascus, in the links between the two Arab neighbours.
He ruled out Israeli-Lebanese peace negotiations without Syria.
"The two tracks (Syrian-Israeli and Lebanese-Israeli) are united by the force of history, geography and the social situation of the two countries," the foreign minister said.
"Nobody can imagine Lebanon making peace without Syria."
04/04/2005 11:13 GMT