Lebanon's charge d'affaires Rami Murtada raised Monday the national flag for the first time over the embassy headquarters in Damascus' Abu Rummaneh Street, local Naharnet website reported.

With the flag hoisting, the first-ever Lebanese embassy has been inaugurated in Syria five months after the two neighbors established diplomatic ties following decades of turbulent relations.

However, local daily As-Safier Monday quoted Lebanese Foreign Minister Fawzi Salloukh as saying that the ambassador to Syria Michel Khoury's mission will not start before April.

Salloukh told the daily that Lebanon still awaits the Syrian decision to name its ambassador, adding that the opening of the embassies will "organize and legalize relations" and become a guarantee for Lebanese in Syria and Syrians in Lebanon.

Meanwhile, three Syrian diplomats arrived last December at the Syrian embassy headquarters in West Beirut's Hamra district, but the mission did not start its operations yet.

Lebanese President Michel Suleiman and his Syrian counterpart Bashar Assad agreed in last August under French auspices to establish diplomatic ties between the two countries for the first time since their independence six decades ago.

(Xinhua News Agency March 16, 2009)