DAMASCUS (AFP) – Syria vowed to cooperate fully with the head of the UN probe into the murder of former Lebanese premier Rafiq Hariri, saying it was in the interests of Damascus to uncover the truth."Detlev Mehlis arrives in Damascus tomorrow… Syria will cooperate with him and extend all possible facilities to the international commission of inquiry," the official SANA news agency said Sunday."It is in the interests of Syria to reach the truth on the crime of Rafiq Hariri’s assassination."
An official daily, Ath-Thawra, said Syria would "cooperate in a serious and responsible manner" with Mehlis, who is visiting Syria as part of his commission’s probe which has seen the arrest of four top pro-Syrian Lebanese security officials.Syria and its political allies in Lebanon at the time are accused of having a hand in the February 14 bomb blast on the Beirut seafront that killed Hariri and another 20 people.
"Mr Melhis will discover that Syria is more committed than the UN to the security and stability of Lebanon," the daily said. "The judicial and technical evidence will prove Syria had nothing to do with this horrible crime".
However, Ath-Thawra expressed "fear that the Mehlis mission could become politicised … to achieve political objectives that threaten the security of the region and its future".
The plotters of the Hariri killing had "political objectives targeting the stability of Lebanon and Syria as well as the brotherly relations between the two countries", it warned.
The paper referred to "
Israel’s longstanding objectives for which it has worked so hard by planning and practising terrorism".
Syria pulled its troops out of Lebanon after a 30-year military presence in the face of intense domestic and international pressure that followed Hariri’s assassination.
Mehlis is expected to meet with Syrian Interior Minister Ghazi Kanaan, also a former military intelligence chief in Lebanon, his successor Rustom Ghazaleh, who left along with the Syrian troops in April, and two key aides in Beirut, Mohammed Makhlouf and Jamaa Jamaa.
The four served as the main pillars of the security network Syria set up in Lebanon to consolidate Damascus’s guardianship, which ended with the pullout.
The German magistrate has insisted that no Syrian suspect has been identified, while also saying however that he believed there were "more people involved" than the four pro-Syrian Lebanese security chiefs arrested so far.
The four detainees are Lebanese presidential guard head Mustafa Hamdan, former general security chief Jamil al-Sayed, ex internal security head Ali al-Hage and former army intelligence director Raymond Azar.
Mehlis, who was originally due in Syria on Saturday, met UN Secretary General
Kofi Annan on Thursday.
"It’s a good sign that he gets to go there," a UN spokesman told AFP. "We’ll have to see how much cooperation he gets."
