Syrian Vice President Farouk al- Shara said on Wednesday that his country had no intention to militarily go back to Lebanon as Syria had decided to let "bygones be bygones," the official SANA news agency reported.

Speaking at a meeting of the National Progressive Front, a coalition of political parties in Syria which supports the ruling al-Baath party, Shara said relations between Syria and Lebanon are deeper and stronger than any considerations or conceptions.

The senior official also criticized foreign interventions in Lebanon, which he said was under the name of keeping Lebanon's sovereignty but actually aimed to put the country under foreign hegemony and totally separated from Syria.

Meanwhile, Shara denied that Syria in anyway interfered in Lebanon, saying that "had she interfered, the issue would have been quickly resolved."

Hundreds of thousands of pro-Syrian protestors have gathered in downtown Beirut since Friday afternoon to attend the Hezbollah-led rally calling for resignation of the government led by Prime Minister Fouad Seniora.

The rift deepened on Monday after the killing of a pro-Syrian Shiite Muslim demonstrator which raised fears that anti-government protests could turn into sectarian violence.

On Wednesday, the Shiite Hezbollah said it was ready to escalate its campaign to topple what it called the Western-backed government and called for a new mass demonstration on Sunday.

Syria, a backer of Hezbollah and a former power broker in Lebanon, was forced to withdraw it troops from its smaller neighbor over last year's assassination of former Lebanese premier Rafik Hariri, ending a 29-year military presence there.

A UN probe has implicated senior Syrian officials in the murder, but Damascus categorically denied any role.

Source: Xinhua