Syria's SANA News Agency reports that tomorrow Damascus will play host to an international conference on the Palestinian ‘right of return’.

According to SANA, the conference will aim to the solidify the right of Palestinians to return to their homeland as a condition without exception, refusing any moves to nationalize Palestinian refugees in their host states. The summit also reportedly hopes to formulate a message to the international community to promote balance on the Palestinian issue and to bring and end to the settlement of Palestinian land.

Since 1948, the issue has been at the center of all talks on the Palestinian-Israeli issue, often being a sought precondition for any peace deal. The “right of return” was first stipulated at the end of the 1948 Arab-Israeli war in the often disputed article 11 of UN Resolution 194.

Syria's choice to host the conference speaks to the centrality of the Palestinian issue to Syria's political posturing. While hosting over 400, 000 Palestinian refugees itself, Syria can only benefit from increasing international awareness of this issue - regardless of how practical the policy actual is - as a form of strategic leverage in any future negotiations with Israel. Realistically speaking, what actually constitutes the ‘right of return’ will need to be defined before attempting to  integrate it into any new peace settlement.

After receiving the cabinet's approval this past weekend, the Iraqi parliament is expected to pass the long-debated security pact sometime over the next few days. Disagreement has centered on the concept of security vs. sovereignty, i.e. should security, which would be helped with an extended US military presence in Iraq, take precedence over an ‘unoccupied’ Iraq?

Al-Jazeera English highlighted the issue in a recent episode of “Inside Story”.

Muqtada Al-Sadr's office issued a statement on Monday (pasted below) denouncing the agreement. In it, Al-Sadr states his party's regret over the cabinet's approval of the pact (described as a pretext for American hegemony), and their hopes that the issue will be discussed in parliament with Iraq's future in mind.

Today in parliament, representatives of Al-Sadr's movement 'scuffled’ with supporters of the agreement during a parliamentary debate. Since the pact first became a topic of discussion, the Shiite Sadrist bloc has been a strong adversary of the initiative.

If public opinion sways against the pact, the Sadrists could use such discontent for political momentum in future elections.

After increased Syrian military activity along its border with Lebanon, and a string of bombings in recent months, the two countries have voiced their interest in increased security cooperation. In a meeting Monday, Lebanese Interior Minister Ziad Baroud agreed with his Syrian counterpart to form a joint-commission charged with improving cooperation on matters of terrorism and crime between the two countries. Not surprisingly, Syria's state-run SANA News Agency has cited Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah's support and encouragement for the initiative.

Members of the anti-Syrian March 14 camp, however, are still busy reeling over recent accusations against the coalition, aired on Syrian TV in a taped ‘confession’ given by alleged Fatah Al-Islam militants, for sponsoring terrorism in Syria.

Regarding what in fact would constitute cooperation, one should perhaps distinguish between cooperation, coordination, and information sharing (intelligence-based cooperation) when it comes to Lebanese-Syrian security matters. Lebanese-Syrian cooperation will likely remain a largely strategic project, as any tactical or operational coordination would antagonize differences within Lebanon's politicized security establishment, suggesting that any such activity would only be  carried out only when circumstances make it an absolute necessity. Meanwhile, other concerns such as smuggling, are perhaps to profitable for parties on both sides of the border to really work towards eliminating.

This agreement should also be also looked at in context. It's worth noting that the Fatah al-Islam ‘confessions’ recently aired on Syrian TV, in addition to embarrassing March 14, served as the perfect segue into this discussion over security cooperation, as the organization's pronounced culpability in the September Damascus bombing now conveniently presents the group as a common threat to both Syrian and Lebanese security interests.