Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz arrived in Syria on Thursday for talks with President Bashar al-Assad on the eve of a joint mission to Lebanon aimed at containing political tensions there.
Assad greeted the king at Damascus airport as the two leaders are to travel to Beirut on Friday as part of a flurry of diplomatic efforts to contain a potentially explosive situation in Lebanon and fears of a new sectarian conflict.
Assad's visit will be his first since the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese premier Rafiq al-Hariri -- father of current Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri -- after which relations between Damascus and Beirut took a sharp downturn.
The assassination provoked an international furor led by the United States, France and Saudi Arabia that prompted Syria to end its 29-year military presence in Lebanon in April 2005 and led to the establishment of the special tribunal.
Syria advises US not to interfere
The Syrian government advised the United States earlier on Thursday against interfering with King Abdullah's visit to Damascus and said the two countries "know better" how to stabilize the Middle East.
U.S. State department official Philip Crowley said on Wednesday Washington hoped Syria would play a constructive role in the region and would respond to the Saudi monarch's concerns about Iranian "threats" to Middle East stability.
"Obviously, King Abdullah has played a significant leadership role in the region. So his prospective travel to Syria and to Lebanon is consistent with his search for peace," Crowley said.
A Syrian foreign ministry statement said the United States "has no right to define our ties with the countries of the region and interfere in the content of the talks the Saudi monarch will have in Damascus."
"Syria and Saudi Arabia... know better than others the interests of the people of the region and how to achieve them without outside interference and they are able to define their policies to achieve peace and stability in the region," the statement said.
US-Syria relations not improved
Relations between Damascus and Washington improved after President Barack Obama took power last year but major differences persist, including Syria's strong ties with Iran and the two countries' backing for the Lebanese group Hezbollah.
"The Syrian statement seems to express a preference in Damascus not to focus on the Iran issue again during King's Abdullah's visit," a Syrian source said.
Iran was a focus of talks by King Abdullah when he visited Damascus last year, diplomats in the Syrian capital said. The visit helped mend ties between Saudi Arabia and Syria, which had deteriorated after the Hariri assassination.
This month Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has repeatedly criticized the U.N.-backed tribunal that began work last year, but has yet to issue indictments in the Hariri case.
He described the tribunal, which is based in The Hague, as an "Israeli project" after saying he had received word that it planned to indict members of his group over Hariri's killing.
U.N. investigators initially implicated Syrian and Lebanese security agencies. Syria says it had no hand in the Feb. 14 seafront bombing in Beirut that killed Hariri and 22 others.
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