Lebanese foreign minister Gebran Bassil warned Saturday that a recent Syrian property law could prevent thousands of refugees from returning home. The law would allow the Syrian government to seize private property - while only paying compensation under certain circumstances. Foreign minister Gebran Bassil of Lebanon warned that the real estate legislation passed in Syria in early April could dispossess hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees and leave them permanently displaced in Lebanon. "The inability for the displaced to prove ownership in the provided timeframe could cause them to lose their property and dispossess them of one of their main incentives to return to Syria", Bassil said in a letter to his Syrian counterpart. The new law, known as Decree 10, allows the Syrian government to seize private properties for reconstruction projects and compensate proven owners with shares in the new projects, AFP reports. Once an area is declared a ...