UN Council to hold meeting on Syria: Pro-govt rally in Damascus
WASHINGTON, Oct 24: The UN Security Council will meet at ministerial level to address a UN report that implicated Syria in the murder of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri, the State Department said on Monday.
State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the United States and other countries were seeking to hold a ministerial-level meeting of the Security Council on Monday of next week.
“Right now, what we are discussing and working toward, although a final date has not yet been set, is for a ministerial-level meeting of the Security Council a week from today, on the 31st of October,” he told reporters.
The Security Council is to hear a briefing on Tuesday by German prosecutor Detlev Mehlis, who led the UN investigation into the Hariri murder and released a report last week that found “converging evidence of both Syrian and Lebanese involvement”.
The US ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, on Monday demanded “substantive cooperation” from Damascus after the report implicated senior Syrian security officials in Hariri’s assassination.
Damascus has denied any role in the February bomb blast that killed Hariri and 20 others on the Beirut seafront, and has rejected the probe’s findings as politically biased, incomplete and “a big lie”.
PRO-ASSAD RALLY: Chanting anti-US slogans, tens of thousands of Syrians protested on Monday against a UN inquiry they say unfairly blames Damascus for the killing of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik al Hariri.
The protests in Damascus and the northern city of Aleppo came on the eve of a UN Security Council meeting to discuss the findings amid demands by the United States and Britain for action against Syria.
Demonstrators, waving Syrian flags and pictures of President Bashar al Assad, said Washington instigated the U.N. probe to pile pressure on Syria for its struggle against Israel and opposition to the invasion of Iraq.
“The pressures have escalated since America entered Iraq and now it’s Syria’s turn because it’s a symbol of Arab resistance,” said Wasim Badour, a travel executive among the protesters in Damascus.
“We will not give up our land easily whatever the cost,” said Loreen Samaan, an employee.
“We don’t fear America, down with America,” some youths chanted at the Damascus rally.
A similar, but apparently larger, demonstration took place in Aleppo, where crowds swelled its main squares.
The UN inquiry, led by German prosecutor Detlev Mehlis, found last week the decision to kill Mr Hariri ‘could not have been taken without the approval of top-ranked Syrian security officials’ colluding with officials in Lebanon.
Its report to the Security Council named senior Syrian security officials and their Lebanese allies as suspects in the murder that transformed Lebanon’s political landscape.
Syrian officials have dismissed the report as political and said the charges were false, but left the door open for future cooperation with the probe, saying it might agree to allow investigators to return to Damascus to quiz Syrian officials.—Reuters
