President Michel Suleiman heads Wednesday for a groundbreaking visit to Syria aimed at redefining ties between Beirut and Damascus, which dominated Lebanon for three decades until it withdrew its forces in 2005.

The two-day visit is the first by a Lebanese head of state since a 2005 Syrian troop pullout from Lebanon in the aftermath of the murder of ex-Premier Rafik Hariri.

Suleiman is carrying with him an agenda loaded with thorny issues, including the establishment of diplomatic ties.

Among the prickly issues in the agenda are a border demarcation, a review of longstanding accords, Lebanese detainees in Syria and the presence of radical pro-Syrian Palestinian groups in Lebanon, diplomatic sources said.

According to a Lebanese official in Beirut, the establishment of diplomatic relations and opening of embassies will top the agenda.

Assad and Suleiman, whose states have not had diplomatic relations since independence more than 60 years ago, agreed to finally set up ties at a meeting last month in France, their former colonial power.

Beirut-Damascus links have been on the decline since Hariri's murder in a February 2005 Beirut bomb blast in which Syria has consistently denied charges of involvement.

But the Doha accord struck in May between the pro- and anti-Syrian camps in Lebanon after an 18-month political crisis which degenerated into deadly factional violence cleared the way for Suleiman's election as president.

Prime Minister Fouad Saniora has since formed a new government of national unity, a development which would have been impossible without the consent of Damascus.

"Syria wants a stable, united and Arab Lebanon which does not serve as a trampoline for hostile activities," Elias Murad, editor-in-chief of the Syrian ruling Baath party's newspaper, told AFP.

Officials in Damascus insist Syria has not interfered in Lebanese affairs since its troop withdrawal and has worked to reunify ranks in Beirut, pointing to the Doha power-sharing accord.

But the Beirut daily An-Nahar, reflecting the suspicions of the Western-backed and anti-Syrian parliamentary majority in Beirut, voiced doubts over how Damascus will "manage the relations."

The official in Beirut said ahead of the visit that the fate of a Lebanese-Syrian Higher Council and a 1991 friendship and cooperation treaty would also figure high on the agenda.

The parliamentary majority wants both the treaty and council to be scrapped.

But the council's secretary general, Nasri Khouri, said embassies did not spell the end of the coordination body. "There will be coordination between the two countries' embassies and the council," he told AFP.

The fate of the Israeli-occupied Shebaa Farms, where Beirut claims sovereignty with the consent of Damascus, is also expected to be discussed.(Naharnet-AFP)