Syrian Foreign Minister Faruq al-Shara told CNN television on Sunday that he expects his country's troops to remain in Lebanon for "only a couple of years" more. "Not for good, certainly," he said.

General Michel Aoun, who was driven into exile in 1990 after a bloody "war of liberation" against Syrian troops, said on Al-Arabiya satellite television that "nobody has asked the Lebanese if they will accept another two years".

The Maronite Christian general was a strong supporter of Resolution 1559 which the Security Council passed in September calling for a withdrawal of all foreign troops in Lebanon.

Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, another key opponent of the Syrian presence in Lebanon, likewise rejected Shara's proposal that the deployment could last another two years.

"It doesn't mean anything because this has been going on for 15 years," he told the French-language newspaper L'Orient Le Jour.

Jumblatt was referring to the 1989 Taef accord which ended Lebanon's 15-year civil war and provided for a gradual pullout of Syrian forces in coordination with the Beirut government.

After a series of partial withdrawals, some 14,000 Syrian troops are still deployed in Lebanon, less than half the number stationed in the country since 1976 before Syrian President Bashar al-Assad took office in 2000.

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