BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) -- Syrian President Bashar Assad told the UN secretary-general Friday that his government is prepared to establish formal diplomatic relations with Lebanon and delineate the border, steps Syria has resisted for six decades.

Many in Lebanon expressed skepticism, saying Assad's promises to UN chief Kofi Annan would likely remain just talk unless international pressure mounted on Damascus.

For Syria, the step would be seen as recognition that its decades-long domination of its smaller neighbor is truly over after crumbling the last year.

Many Lebanese suspect Syria has never really accepted Lebanon's independence and remains angry that parts of their country were carved out of the former Syrian province of the Ottoman Empire in 1920.

Annan reported Assad's statement after a meeting in Damascus. Assad made no public comment. "These are nice, sugarcoated words," Lebanese Druse leader Walid Jumblatt, a virulently anti-Syrian politician, told Al-Arabiya television. "... (W)e know the Syrian double-talk. They say one thing to international envoys and implement another thing on the ground."

Nicolas Nassif, an analyst with the Lebanese newspaper Al-Akhbar, said he suspected Assad was just posturing. "If Assad was serious about responding to international resolutions, we would have seen Syria improving its relations with Lebanon a long time ago," he said.

Earlier this year, the UN Security Council passed a resolution sponsored by the United States, France and Britain that urged Syria and Lebanon to agree on their border and establish diplomatic relations.

Syria said previously that it did not object to defining the border but wanted that to take place at a later stage because of the current tensions between Damascus and a Beirut government dominated by anti-Syrian politicians.

Assad also said earlier this year that Syria did not object to establishing diplomatic relations with Lebanon, but added that no foreign power could impose such ties and that it was something to be discussed between the two neighbors.

"Syria has always said, before and after the U.N. resolution, that it has no problem in demarcating the border and establishing diplomatic ties when the timing is right," said George Jabbour, a Syrian legislator and political analyst.

He said Syria has long acknowledged and accepted Lebanon's independence.

But since 1943, when Syria and Lebanon gained independence from France, Damascus has sidestepped formal links with Beirut, saying their relationship was so close they didn't need diplomatic relations.

Syria's army dominated its neighbor since soon after Lebanon's civil war began in 1975, and by the time the war ended in 1990, Damascus controlled Lebanese politics.

That situation continued until the February 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, which many in Lebanon blamed on Syria. International pressure, coupled with mass anti-Syrian demonstrations in Beirut, forced Syria to pull out its troops. Anti-Syrian politicians then won control of parliament and the government.