Lebanese President Michel Suleiman has accepted that Syrian troop movements near the border between the two countries are aimed at tackling smuggling, according to a statement received by AFP on Saturday.

Suleiman contacted Syrian President Bashar al-Assad about the deployment and was told the moves are a continuation of "steps by the Syrian authorities to counter every kind of smuggling," the presidential statement said.

The statement was issued in the wake of a cabinet meeting on Friday night which lasted more than five hours.

Prime Minister Fouad Saniora had during the meeting emphasized "the need for security and military coordination" between the two countries on the issue of smuggling, the official National News Agency said.

In September, the Lebanese army revealed the deployment of 10,000 Syrian special forces in the Abboudiyeh region along the border between Lebanon and Syria.

The move followed a Damascus summit between Assad and Suleiman in August during which it was agreed that the neighbors would take formal steps to demarcate their borders arising from a decision to normalize their relations for the first time after decades of tension.

Members of the anti-Syrian parliamentary majority in Lebanon say Syria could be setting the stage to return its forces to their country.

The U.S. State Department said on Monday that Washington was concerned about the Syrian troop movements and warned Damascus against interference in Lebanon.

Damascus on Wednesday defended its troop deployments as being necessary to combat smuggling and infiltration by saboteurs.

Syria, a longtime powerbroker in its smaller neighbor, withdrew its troops from Lebanon in 2005 after a deployment of three decades.(AFP)