Damascus: "I kissed the General" said one woman who met Lebanese Christian leader General Michel Aoun at one of the churches of Damascus on Wednesday. "I was pulled away, leaving him wondering - waiting - for another kiss!" she told Gulf News.

She could not hold back her grin at seeing "the General" in Damascus; "it was too abstract; almost like something out of a dream!" She added, "Our generation - young adults in the late 1980s - remember only too well his loud war against Syria, which lasted until 2005. Politics is indeed, a dirty game. Look at him now, a guest of honour in Damascus!"

The Damascenes have been treating Aoun as a top celebrity during his five-day trip to Syria, which started on Wednesday. Some are doing it because they respect the former army commander and current Member of the Lebanese Parliament.

Others are celebrating him "because he is a thorn in the side of the March 14 Coalition." Some are doing it because he is an ally of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and represents what they call, "the other side of Lebanon; a Lebanon that is non-sectarian and not tied to Saudi Arabia and the United States."

Aoun's trip is supposed to include a visit to the Street called Straight (Midhat Pasha) in the heart of Old Damascus, churches throughout the Syrian capital, mainly in the Bab Touma neighbourhood and the Grand Umayyad Mosque that was visited by Pope John Paul II in 2001. Aoun is also scheduled to speak to students at Syrian universities and tour Christian villages in the Syrian countryside, where a grassroots welcome is awaiting him.

Meeting Assad

Although officially only a party leader and member of parliament (who commands the largest Christian bloc), he was welcomed at Damascus International Airport by Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad, and had a high profile audience with President Bashar Al Assad on Wednesday.

"We spoke with our hearts and minds ... so there remains no trace of a past in which there are many painful things," said Aoun after meeting Al Assad, in reference to his former "war of liberation" against Syria, launched when he was occupying Baabda Palace after the exodus of ex-Lebanese President Ameen Gemayel in 1988.

"I left behind the past when I came to Syria" he noted, "We want to build the future, not dwell on the past." Aoun added, "What was once forbidden has now become halal - very halal" claiming that this turns a new page in Syrian-Lebanese relations.

Some are sceptical of the visit and one Syrian-American Christian noted, "Christianity is completely non-violent (in reference to Aoun's former military record, when he took part in the civil war against his rival Samir Geagea). This is why I loathe any discourse that talks about politicians and military or militant people within the context of religion or through a sectarian angle. Imagine the images of Hassan Nasrallah with an AK-47 and what they do for Muslims?"

Another young Syrian told Gulf News, "I don't know where this status of a 'Leader and Saviour of Arab Christians' came from. Aoun is what he is in Lebanon. But here in Syria fortunately people don't subscribe to leaders and Za'ims like our Lebanese friends. In Syria, Christians don't chose their leaders because they're Christians or Muslims. Let's keep it this way."