By Alaa Shahine, BEIRUT (Reuters) – Foreign Secretary Jack Straw urged Syria on Wednesday to cooperate with a U.N. inquiry into the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri and respect the sovereignty of its smaller neighbour.Straw made his comments as diplomats said Syria had agreed to allow U.N. investigators to interview its foreign minister over the killing but was still considering a request for a meeting with President Bashar al-Assad.
"We urge and continue to urge Syria to cooperate fully with those (U.N.) resolutions in particular with the United Nations investigation into the assassination," Straw said at a joint news conference with Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora."What we want to see is the government of Syria … meeting its international obligations … including the full recognition of the Lebanon as a sovereign, independent state."Straw was the most senior British official to visit Lebanon since Hariri’s assassination in February.The killing sparked weeks of street protests that forced Syria to bow to international pressure to withdraw its troops from Lebanon in April, ending a three-decade military presence and years of political domination.
The U.N. inquiry into the truck bombing that killed Hariri and 22 others in Beirut has already implicated Syrian officials in the murder.
Damascus denies any role but a U.N. resolution demanded in October that it fully cooperate with the investigation or face unspecified further consequences.
Another U.N. resolution in 2004 had demanded Syria stop interfering in Lebanon, which it had dominated after the 1975-1990 civil war.
Straw urged Syria to show the world it respected Lebanese sovereignty by opening an embassy. Syria and Lebanon have not exchanged diplomatic missions since their independence from French rule in the 1940s.
Straw will also meet Foreign Minister Fawzi Salloukh in a visit diplomats and aides say is designed to support Lebanon ahead of an international debt aid conference expected to take place in Beirut early this year.
But in an apparent snub, the top diplomat was not scheduled to meet pro-Syrian President Emile Lahoud, Minister Straw boycotted president Lahoud.
Lebanon hopes the conference, which was meant to take place in late 2005 but was postponed, will draw some $4 billion (2.3 billion pounds) in aid to lighten a $37 billion debt whose servicing costs weigh heavily on the public purse.
The international community, particularly the United States, Britain and France, pledged support for Lebanon on the sidelines of a U.N. General Assembly meeting last year.
At a U.N. meeting in October, Straw engaged in a bitter public exchange with his Syrian counterpart Farouq al-Shara over accusations of Syrian involvement in Hariri’s murder.
