Cooperate with probe: UNSC directs Syria

The UN Security Council voted unanimously on Monday for a resolution demanding Syria cooperate with a UN probe into the death of former Leba...

The UN Security Council voted unanimously on Monday for a resolution demanding Syria cooperate with a UN probe into the death of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri or face possible “further action”.

The United States, France and Britain sponsored the measure in response to a tough report earlier this month by a UN commission that said Syrian security forces and its Lebanese allies organised Hariri’s assassination. The report also accused Syria of lack of cooperation.

“With our decision today we show that Syria has isolated itself from the international community through its false statements, its support for terrorism, its interference in the affairs of its neighbours and its destabilising behavior in the Middle East,” US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said. “Now the Syrian government needs to make a strategic decision to fundamentally change its behaviour.”

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Some 11 foreign ministers or their deputies among the 15 Security Council members traveled to New York for the meeting, underlying the importance of the vote and negotiated the text until the last minute. The resolution was adopted 15-0 after the principal drafters, the USand France, agreed to delete a specific reference to economic sanctions. Instead the resolution would consider possible unspecified “further action” if Syria did not comply.

Russia, China and Algeria had objected to an outright threat of sanctions and might have abstained.

The measure demands Syria cooperate “unconditionally” with the UN probe, led by German prosecutor Detlev Mehlis, and orders Damascus to take into custody and make available to UN investigators people suspected of involvement in the killing.

It also calls for a financial freeze and travel ban on individual suspects to be named by a UN commission. But any Security Council member can object to a name on such a list.

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China’s foreign minister, Li Zhaoxing spoke against any “wilful” use of sanctions. Noting that Mehlis would continue investigations until at least December 15, he said: “Under such circumstances it is inappropriate for the council to prejudge the outcome of the investigation and to threaten to impose sanctions. It does not help with the settlement of this issue and will add new destabilising factors to the already complex situation in the Middle East.”

France’s Foreign Minister, Philippe Douste-Blazy, said the Security Council had “only one aim: the truth, the whole truth about Rafik Hariri’s assassination in order that those responsible for it answer for their crime”.

But Brazil also had hesitations about sanctions, with its foreign minister, Celso Amorim, saying any additional measure could only be taken by council members on the basis of facts. —Reuters