A group of trucks stranded in Syria in December 2024. (Credit: NNA)
BEIRUT — After a meeting held on Monday in Jdeidet Yabous, the border crossing in western rural Damascus opposite Lebanon's Al-Masnaa, between Lebanese and Syrian officials, participants agreed to extend the reciprocity that was agreed upon earlier this month in the mechanism regulating the movement of goods and transport through land borders between the two countries.
Truck traffic between Syria and Lebanon had been blocked for almost a week early February, after Syria’s General Authority for Border Crossings and Customs issued a decision forbidding “non-Syrian trucks" to enter Syrian territory via land crossings.
After protests held by truck drivers and negotiations between the two parties, traffic resumed starting Feb. 13, under certain conditions, after both sides agreed on unloading and reloading goods at a joint zone along the border with a temporary mechanism of reciprocity put in place to regulate movement. It was then agreed that this mechanism should be reevaluated before being extended.
Monday's meeting therefore was evaluative and aimed to obtain the Syrian response to the Lebanese proposal sent on Saturday of extending this reciprocity, and the Syrian part agreed on an "extension of the mechanism currently in place until a comprehensive solution is reached."
According to our correspondent in the Bekaa, the meeting on Monday was attended by officials from the Ministry of Transport, the Refrigerated Truck Syndicate, the Land Transport Unions, the General Security and the Customs from the Lebanese side, as well as the Jdeidet Yabous border crossing director Ahmad al-Khatib and customs secretary Ahmad al-Amouri from the Syrian side.
