Syrian President Bashar Assad reportedly said that there will be no presidential elections in Lebanon any time soon unless dialogue with Damascus led to a candidate who is an ally.

“This year might witness the election of a new president in Lebanon if certain conditions were implemented,” Assad's visitors quoted him as saying in comments published in the Kuwaiti newspaper al-Seyassah.

Syrian Ambassador to Lebanon Ali Abdul Karim Ali denied Thursday that Syrians are now required to obtain visas to be able to enter Lebanon, reiterating his call for “coordination” between the two countries regarding border measures.

“There can't be visas between Syria and Lebanon,” Ali stressed after talks with Speaker Nabih Berri in Ain al-Tineh.

Social Affairs Minister Rashid Derbas has said new regulations to impose visa restrictions on Syrians are aimed at differentiating between refugees and visitors.

The authorities are compelled to “organize the entry and exit of Syrians as part of the implementation of the new security strategy,” Derbas told pan-Arab daily Asharq al-Awsat in remarks published on Sunday.

Syria's ambassador to Lebanon Ali Abdul Karim Ali expressed understanding to the measures taken by the Lebanese state to organize the movement of Syrians into and out of Lebanon, calling for further cooperation.

“The measures are to organize the operation due to the high pressure imposed by the policies adopted and the conditions in Lebanon,” Ali told reporters after talks with former Prime Minister Salim el-Hoss at his residence in Beirut's Aisha Bakkar.

Syria's ambassador to Lebanon Ali Abdul Karim Ali on Thursday criticized “those obstructing cooperation" between Lebanon and Syria," particularly after militants stormed the northeastern border town of Arsal.

Syria and Lebanon “are two countries with shared geography and one people and there is one enemy lurking both nations,” Ali said in an interview on al-Manar television.

A suggestion by Foreign Minister Jebran Bassil Friday that refugee camps be set up along the country's border with Syria was swiftly rejected by Damascus's ambassador, Ali Abdul Karim Ali.

Bassil "met ambassadors from the powerful five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council today (Friday) and discussed with them the establishment of camps for Syrian refugees along the border," a ministry statement said.

Syrian expats streamed to their embassy in Yarze on Wednesday to vote in a controversial presidential election, contrary to Lebanese elections held usually on weekends, which triggered suffocating traffic congestion, jamming work bound Lebanese citizens in their cars.

By midday, all the entrances to Beirut were blocked, causing long tailbacks, as thousands of Syrians descended on the embassy, mostly by foot.

Syria's ambassador to Lebanon said Monday the upcoming Syrian presidential election will be the resounding answer to all those who doubt that his government will prevail in its current conflict.

Sitting in his office at the hilltop Syrian Embassy just outside the Lebanese capital, Ali Abdul Karim Ali said he expects a huge turnout for the vote scheduled to be held abroad on Wednesday and in Syria on June 3.

Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem, who led the regime's negotiating team at failed peace talks this year, underwent a successful heart operation in Lebanon on Friday, Syrian television reported.

Muallem, the chief diplomat of President Bashar Assad's regime throughout the three-year civil war, had undergone tests for a suspected blocked coronary artery, a medical source in the Lebanese capital told Agence France Presse.

Syrian Ambassador Ali Abdul Karim Ali slammed on Saturday calls by some officials to shut his country's embassy in Lebanon, considering that Beirut has no interest in doing so.

“We are keen to maintain deep brotherly ties between the two countries, those who are demanding the shut of the Syrian embassy represent only themselves,” the ambassador told reporters after talks with Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun in Rabieh.