Syria has confirmed it received a UN investigative panel's request to interview President Bashar Assad and his foreign minister about the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.
A Syrian official, who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the investigation, said the Foreign Ministry received the request to interview Assad and Foreign Minister Farouk al-Sharaa. The official would not say how Damascus planned to respond.
Hariri was an opponent of Syrian influence in Lebanon and his killing provoked mass demonstrations against Damascus and international pressure that forced Syria to withdraw its troops from Lebanon in April, ending a 29-year military presence in the country. The United Nations then authorized a panel to investigate the assassination.
In two reports last year, the commission accused Syrian and Lebanese intelligence officials of being involved in Hariri's killing. The outgoing commission chairman, Detlev Mehlis, has said Syrian "authorities" were behind the assassination.
The request for the interview with Assad came after former Syrian Vice President Abdul-Halim Khaddam alleged last week that Assad had threatened Hariri several months before his assassination. An earlier request in July to interview Assad was refused.
Khaddam, who left Syria several months ago, said Assad warned Hariri in August 2004 that he would "crush whoever attempts to overturn our decision" to extend the term of Lebanon's pro-Syrian president.
Syria's push for the three-year extension of Emile Lahoud's presidency in September 2004 - which Hariri opposed - was considered responsible for the crisis in Lebanese-Syrian relations that preceded Hariri's assassination.
AP