Furious Syria attacks UN over Hariri probe
Syria’s foreign minister went before the United Nations Security Council, angrily rejecting a resolution passed unanimously just an hour before, demanding that Damascus co-operate more with a probe into the assassination of Lebanon’s former prime minister.
Diplomats expressed shock at Farouk al-Sharaa’s response to the resolution that threatened possible “further measures” if Syria did not start co-operating fully with the probe into the February 14 bombing that killed Rafik Hariri and 20 others. They said his statement underscored Syria’s isolation and highlighted the necessity for the warning to Damascus.
The resolution, co-sponsored by the US, Britain and France, requires Syria to detain anyone whom UN investigators consider a suspect in Hariri’s assassination. The investigators, led by German prosecutor Detlev Mehlis, had concluded that Hariri’s murder was unlikely to have occurred without senior Syrian approval.
It marked the culmination of council pressure on Syria to loosen its grip on Lebanon further in the months since Hariri’s assassination prompted Damascus to withdraw its troops in April, after 29 years.
Mehlis, whose mandate has been extended to December 15, has also been given new authority by the council, and could seek to use it immediately. He is likely to seek to question Syrian president Bashar Assad’s brother-in-law, who has been implicated in the killing, and Assad’s brother, who is also under suspicion.
“I would like to say that the message of the security council is particularly clear: Syria must co-operate with the Security Council otherwise there will be consequences,” France’s foreign minister Philippe Douste-Blazy said. “Justice shall prevail.”
The three co-sponsors, the United States, France and Britain, had to drop the explicit threat of economic sanctions to win unanimous support for the resolution at a rare meeting of the foreign ministers from most of the council’s 15 members yesterday. Russia, China, Brazil and others had strongly opposed the sanctions threat.
Although the resolution was significantly weakened, al-Sharaa was defiant in his response to the council. He accused Mehlis’ earlier report to the council of essentially convicting Syria before it had faced trial.
“It proceeds from the presumption that Syria is accused of committing this crime rather than a presumption of innocence,” al-Sharaa said.
He then claimed that accusing Syrian security forces of having advance knowledge of Hariri’s killing was tantamount to claiming that US officials knew ahead of time about the September 11 attacks, Spanish authorities knew in advance about the 2004 Madrid train bombings and the British government about this summer’s London Tube and bus bombings.
And he went a step further, raising questions about why Britain had trained for similar scenarios soon before the attacks occurred.
The comment visibly angered Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, who called it “the most grotesque and insensitive comparison”, “appalling” and “absurd”.
He said any council member concerned about adopting the resolution under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, which is militarily enforceable, should have had their misgivings allayed by al-Sharaa.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said afterwards that al-Sharaa’s outburst was “a tirade which made the most bizarre connection”.
“It sends a very strong signal to Syria of its isolation, but of course that signal was simply reinforced by the really unbelievable tirade of Syria’s foreign minister, Mr al-Sharaa,” Rice said.
She noted al-Sharaa himself was accused of lying in a letter to the Mehlis commission and said his intransigence showed that Syria wanted to discredit the UN investigation even after a security council vote strongly supported it.
Rice was asked whether putting the resolution under Chapter VII would give the US unilateral authority to use force against Syria, as it did in Iraq.
“This Chapter VII resolution is very explicit in what it means, which is that Syria must co-operate with the Mehlis report and then, if necessary, the council can come back and consider other measures, or other action. ... That is what we intend to live by,” she replied.
Seeking to rally regional support, Assad’s government called Monday for an emergency Arab League summit. But Arab diplomats said it was unlikely that many of the group’s 22 member nations would agree to a meeting, for fear of harming ties with the US, Britain and France.
Syrian troops occupied much of Lebanon for nearly 30 years, until Hariri’s assassination triggered widespread street protests and intensified international pressure that forced Assad to order a complete military withdrawal last spring. Syria has denied any involvement in Hariri’s assassination.
