The Syrian Foreign Minister, Mr Faruq al-Shara, is due in the Lebanese capital today, to co-ordinate policy with Beirut before the resumption of talks with Israel on January 3rd.
Yesterday he briefed President Hafez al-Assad of Syria on last week's discussions in Washington.
Sources in both Damascus and Beirut say that Mr al-Shara is expected to be appointed prime minister when a new government is formed next year.
It is unlikely, however, that he will be elevated until negotiations with Israel are well advanced.
The Lebanese Minister of Information, Mr Anwar al-Khalil, told The Irish Times that a "timeframe for the resumption of Lebanese-Israeli negotiations will be decided during today's discussions". Lebanon, he said, will continue to demand unconditional Israeli withdrawal from south Lebanon in accordance with Security Council resolution 425.
It will also insist that other "sensitive issues" must be on the table once the Lebanese delegation, to be headed by the Interior Minister, Mr Michel Murr, sits down with the Israelis.
Mr al-Khalil said that 41 Lebanese civilians held in Israeli prisons and 157 detained by Israel's surrogate South Lebanon Army (SLA) militia at the notorious Khiam prison in the occupation zone will be the first item on Beirut's list.
Lebanon also demands that Israel cease siphoning water from Lebanese sources and recognise the right of return to their homeland of 350,000 Palestinian refugees residing in Lebanon. "And," he said, "we will definitely bring up the issue of compensation for the consequences of the war that Israel has waged against Lebanon for so many years.
On Saturday, hundreds of Lebanese schoolchildren staged a demonstration outside the UN's high-rise headquarters in central Beirut. They condemned last Thursday's SLA attack on a school in the southern village of Arab Slim in which 24 small children were wounded, several critically.
The Hizbullah resistance movement, which organised the protest, announced that its operations will continue until "all our land is liberated". Syria has pledged to put the brakes on Hizbullah, "if a deal is done" over the Golan and south Lebanon. But not until.
