U.N.-Commissioned Hariri Investigation Runs Into Damascus Roadblock

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The New York Sun

UNITED NATIONS – Syria failed to cooperate with a U.N.-commissioned investigation on the assassination of a former Lebanese prime minister, Rafik Hariri, but Russia blocked a U.N. Security Council statement that would have directly implicated Damascus.


In a briefing to the council yesterday, the U.N. undersecretary-general for political affairs, Ibrahim Gambari, said that on June 11 and on July 19, the commission headed by a German, Detlev Mehlis, requested interviews with five Syrian witnesses, but Damascus failed to respond. A month later, Syria’s ambassador to the United Nations, Fayssal Mekdad, said his country was willing to negotiate with the commission, Mr. Gambari told the council yesterday.


“While the commission is always open to discussions,” Mr. Gambari said during the closed-door session, according to notes made available to The New York Sun, “discussions cannot substitute the requested assistance.” Mr. Mehlis believes that “lack of timely response by the Syrian Arab Republic has considerably slowed down the commission’s work,” according to Mr. Gambari.


Mr. Gambari refused to confirm after the session whether one of the five Syrian officials the Mehlis commission asked to interview was President Assad, who is expected to visit New York for the September 14 Turtle Bay summit on U.N. reform. Lack of cooperation with a U.N.-commissioned investigator might embarrass the Baathist dictator. “Syria will cooperate,” Mr. Mekdad told reporters.


Diplomats from America and France, which have taken the lead on the council’s Lebanon policy since the February 14 assassination of Hariri that set in motion the Cedar Revolution, quickly suggested yesterday that the council would issue a statement expressing concern about Syria’s lack of cooperation with the Mehlis commission.


Mr. Gambari told the council that besides Syria, others have fully cooperated in the investigation of Hariri’s murder, including “Lebanese authorities and financial institutions,” as well as Jordan and Israel, which “have reacted positively to the commission’s request for assistance.” Russia objected to naming Syria in a statement, however, so the council merely ended up urging “all parties, especially those who are yet to respond adequately, to cooperate fully” with the commission.


At one point, said one diplomat who requested anonymity due to the sensitivity of the negotiations, America’s U.N. ambassador, John Bolton, suggested that no statement would be better than a tepid one, as it would highlight the council’s failure to adequately respond to Syria’s intransigence.


“We are disappointed that we couldn’t be clearer today in the council,” Mr. Bolton said after the session, “but let there be no ambiguity about the American view that Syria’s lack of cooperation with the Independent International Investigatory Commission is not acceptable.” The “evidentiary trail grows cold with delay, and everybody knows that the lack of cooperation that potentially material witnesses and parties bring can impede an investigation severely,” he said.


The Mehlis commission, which was established to investigate the Hariri assassination as part of the council’s resolution known as 1559, has yet to publish any conclusions.


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