DAMASCUS, 17 November 2005 — Syria has proposed that a UN investigator interview Syrians over the assassination of a former Lebanese prime minister at UN offices on the Golan Heights, a Syrian official said yesterday.
The official, who asked not to be named, said Damascus would send a Foreign Ministry legal adviser to meet the head of the UN investigation team, Detlev Mehlis, “soon.”
Mehlis has asked to question six Syrian security officials in Lebanon as part of his probe into the February bomb assassination of Lebanon’s former Prime Minister Rafik Al-Hariri.
“In a letter by Justice Minister Mohammad Al-Ghafari to Mehlis on Nov. 9, Syria proposed the offices of the United Nations in the occupied Golan Heights or any other place in Syria that he chooses,” the official said.
“Mehlis has been made aware of Syria’s reservations about Beirut as a venue and the Foreign Ministry’s legal adviser Riad Al-Daoudi will be sent to meet with him soon for consultations,” the official said.
“Syria is willing to cooperate and this was said in letters by President Bashar Assad to world leaders and United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan,” the official said. “The president explained Syria’s position in full.”
In an interim report last month, Mehlis said he had evidence of Syrian and Lebanese officials’ involvement in Hariri’s assassination by a car bomb that also killed 22 others. Syria denies any role.
Anti-Syrian sentiment is still running high in Lebanon where many people say Damascus and its Lebanese allies were behind the attack.
Meanwhile, Russia hopes Syrian cooperation will enable Mehlis to complete his mission, its security chief said in Damascus.
“We are comfortable that Syria is actively participating in the implementation of the resolution relevant to the investigation into the assassination of the former premier,” said Igor Ivanov, secretary of Russia’s Security Council.
“We hope that this cooperation by Syria will enable Detlev Mehlis to fulfill his mandate,” he told reporters through a translator after talks in Damascus with Bashar and Foreign Minister Farouk Al-Shara.
In Beirut, UN undersecretary-general for political affairs Ibrahim Gambari told a news conference later yesterday that the world body was still waiting for Syria’s response to the request announced earlier in November.
Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul too arrived in Damascus for a brief visit to the Syrian capital where he held talks with Bashar and Al-Shara.
Gul declined to comment on the outcome of his talks with Assad and Al-Shara but the state-run Syrian Arab News Agency said he voiced Ankara’s desire “to safeguard stability in the region and to prevent the eruption of new crises.”
