DAMASCUS, 11 November 2005 — Syrian President Bashar Assad yesterday lashed out at international pressure on his country and threatened that Damascus would cease cooperation with the UN inquiry into the killing of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri if Syria was harmed.

“We will play their game. However, the result after Dec. 15 will be that Syria did not cooperate regardless of what we do and how much cooperation we show,” Bashar said in a televised speech at Damascus University.

“However, if Syria is harmed, even partially, such act would trigger a very serious outcome not only in this region but in other parts of the world,” Bashar said.

An angry Bashar also launched an unprecedented attack on some Lebanese leaders, accusing them of turning their country into a “hotbed of conspiracy against Syria and a base for Damascus’ enemies.” The Syrian president pleaded his country’s innocence in the assassination of Hariri and pledged full cooperation with the international inquiry probing the case. “I always said Syria is innocent. Now I can say that we are very close to the absolute truth that we are innocent and Syria is not implicated as a country or as an individual,” a confident Bashar said.

In an attack on Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Siniora and Hariri’s son Saad, who is the majority leader in the Lebanese Parliament, Bashar accused both of plotting with some international powers to turn their country into a base for the enemies of Syria.

“The truth is that Siniora is a slave working for a master who is himself a slave getting his orders from his bosses. The truth we see today is that Lebanon has become a factory, a financier, and a passageway for conspiracies against our country in a striking contradiction to what Siniora had promised when we met him here as he committed himself to have the best relations between Syria and Lebanon,” Bashar said.

He also accused Hariri’s supporters of exploiting his death for political ends, stressing that the late Hariri had been Syria’s main ally in Lebanon. “The truth is that Hariri’s supporters, or at least the majority of them, are blood traders who have created a bourse out of Hariri’s blood and fixed prices for everything,” Bashar added.

The Syrian president said the head of the UN inquiry probing the killing of Hariri, Detlev Mehlis, had turned down Syria’s invitations to visit Damascus and question Syrian witnesses. “Instead of looking for the truth, the commission is relying on a false witness,” he said.

Bashar said Syria was facing such strong international pressure simply because it had refused all offers and deals to cease its support to the Palestinian and the Lebanese national resistance movements. “Syria would not have been facing any problems today, had it bargained on issues like the independence of Iraq, the Palestinian intifada, the Lebanese national resistance, and our national dignity. But neither President Bashar nor Syria will ever bow to such demands,” said Bashar to applause from the audience at the university auditorium and thousands of flag-waving people who had gathered outside.

In Paris, French President Jacques Chirac said that Syria should face international sanctions unless it cooperated fully with the Mehlis inquiry. Chirac said sanctions would become necessary if Bashar “continues to refuse to listen, or understand” the necessity of cooperating with the UN investigation.