Syria sharply criticised today a UN resolution ordering it to cooperate fully with an international inquiry into the killing of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri or face unspecified action.
"We consider the resolution to be very negative towards Syria, and as it is unanimous this makes it more problematic," a Foreign Ministry source said of Monday's Security Council vote.
"It is accusatory and adopts the assumptions that (chief U.N. investigator Detlev) Mehlis had arrived at which we consider hasty and not objective enough," the source said. Mehlis, the German prosecutor conducting the inquiry, has pointed to Syrian security officials as suspects in the Feb. 14 Beirut bombing that killed Hariri and 22 others.
His October 20th report spoke of "converging evidence" of Syrian and Lebanese involvement in Hariri's killing and said it would be hard to imagine how such a plot could have gone ahead without the knowledge of Syrian and Lebanese intelligence services. Tightening the diplomatic noose around Syria, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told the council that the resolution "made it clear that failure to comply with these demands will lead to serious consequences from the international community".
But unanimity was achieved only after the United States, France and Britain, sponsors of the resolution, agreed to drop an explicit threat of economic sanctions against Syria.
Otherwise Russia, China and Algeria might have abstained. Instead, the resolution says the council "could consider further action" if Syria fails to meet demands that include detaining anyone whom Mehlis wants to question.