Washington - The United States cautiously welcomed Syria's formal establishment of diplomatic relations with Lebanon on Tuesday.

US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the two neighbouring countries still must define final borders. He also cautioned that "behavior beyond just setting up these embassies and establishing diplomatic relations also matters."

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad issued an order Tuesday cementing diplomatic ties and announcing plans to set up an embassy in Beirut and exchange ambassadors.

Beirut - Syrian President Bashar al-Assad issued Tuesday a resolution to establish diplomatic ties with Lebanon and open a Syrian embassy in Lebanon, a Lebanese government source said.

The source said Lebanon's Foreign Minister Fawzi Salloukh was due to visit Damascus on Wednesday to discuss "steps to be taken" in this regard between the two neigbouring countries.

Al-Assad did not specify an exact date for the embassy's opening in Beirut, Al-Arabia television channel reported.

Amman - The two US journalists who were released by Syria on Thursday were quoted Friday by the paper they worked for, the Jordan Times, as saying they were "kidnapped and taken by force into the Syrian territory."

Taylor Luck, 23, and Holli Chmela, 27, arrived back in Jordan in the early hours of Friday after the Syrian authorities handed them over to the US embassy in Damascus.

The two journalists arrived in Lebanon on September 29 for a vacation, but were missing since October 1, when they reportedly departed Beirut en route to Byblos and Tripoli and then to Aleppo.

The Syrian Foreign Ministry said Thursday that the two US citizens entered Syria "illegally" with smugglers and did not obtain entry visas.

Washington - A Syrian military intervention into Lebanon following a series of terrorist attacks would be "unacceptable," the US State Department said Monday.

The Syrian government has reportedly amassed thousands of soldiers near the border area in north Lebanon, prompting worries in Beirut that Damascus was preparing for an incursion.

State Department deputy spokesman Robert Wood said the September bombing attacks in Damascus and the Lebanese city of Tripoli cannot be used as a pretext for military intervention.

New York - The United Nations was seeking 20.2 million dollars to help Syria combat the worst drought in four decades, which has affected more than 1 million people there, the UN said Wednesday.

The money will go to help those affected for six months - predominantly herders and subsistence farmers who are at risk of losing their livelihoods and threatened by malnutrition, the UN humanitarian office said.