BEIRUT (Reuters) -Lebanon said on Thursday it was looking forward to having the best neighbourly relations with Syria after the fall of Bashar al-Assad opened the way to a new era in the often turbulent relations between the two neighbours.
Lebanese Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib passed on the message - Beirut's first to the new administration in Damascus - to his Syrian counterpart Asaad Hassan al-Shibani in a phone call, the Lebanese Foreign Ministry said.
Ties between Damascus and Beirut have often been fraught since they became independent states in the 1940s.
The Iran-backed Lebanese Shi'ite Islamist group Hezbollah played a major part propping up Assad during Syria's civil war, fighting the Sunni Islamist insurgents who finally toppled him on Dec. 8 and appointed the new Damascus administration.
Prior to this, the Syrian state led by the Assad dynasty dominated Lebanon for 15 years after the end of the Lebanese 1975-90 civil war, effectively controlling Lebanese politics until 2005 - influence many Lebanese opposed, though others supported Syria's role.
The assassination of Lebanon's Rafik al-Hariri in Beirut in 2005 prompted mass protests in Lebanon and Western pressure that forced Syria's withdrawal from its neighbour.
An initial international probe implicated senior Syrian and Lebanese figures in the killing.
While Syria denied involvement, former Syrian Vice President Abdel-Halim Khaddam said Assad had threatened Hariri months earlier - an accusation Assad denied.
Fifteen years later, a U.N.-backed court convicted three Hezbollah members in absentia over the assassination. Hezbollah denies any role.