Lebanon approved on Tuesday Syria's nominee for its first ambassador to Beirut, five months after the two countries established diplomatic ties for the first time, an official said.
"President Michel Sleiman on Tuesday approved the nomination of Ali Abdel Karim Ali as the Syrian Arab Republic's ambassador to Beirut," the official in the president's office said, according to AFP.
Lebanon's ambassador to Damascus, diplomat Michel el-Khoury, was named at the start of the year and an embassy was opened in the Syrian capital earlier this month.
The 56 year old Ali has been ambassador to Kuwait since November 2004 and has also served as the head of Syrian state radio and television and the official SANA news agency. In 1998, the married father of four published a collection of poems.
