DAMASCUS, March 24 (RIA Novosti) - Syria officially named its ambassador to Lebanon for the first time since the countries gained independence in the 1940s, Lebanese LBC television said on Tuesday.

"Lebanese President Michel Suleiman accepted Ali Abdul Karim Ali's diplomatic accreditation as Syria's ambassador in Beirut," the channel said.

The Syrian envoy has now joined three diplomats, who have been working in the Syrian embassy in Beirut since December 2008 after the two countries' leaders pledged to improve relations between the two Arab states at a meeting in Paris last July.

The new Lebanese Ambassador to Syria Michel el-Khoury is due to arrive in Damascus in the first half of April, until then foreign ministry aide, Rami Murtada, is in charge of the diplomatic office.

Syria for decades dominated Lebanon, before finally pulling its troops from the neighboring country in April 2005. This came just two months after the assassination of the former Lebanese premier Rafiq Hariri in a Beirut bombing. Damascus has denied any involvement in the assassination.