Syria: The United States and Britain stepped up pressure on Syria yesterday, calling for foreign ministers of the United Nations Security Council countries to meet to consider urgent measures which might include demanding that senior Syrian officials give face-to-face evidence on the murder of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri.
After a UN report pointed a finger at Damascus last week, Syria faces more embarrassment this week from a second UN report into its compliance with demands that it stop interfering in Lebanon.
President Bashar alAssad withdrew his forces from Lebanon this spring, hoping that this would satisfy his critics, but a forthcoming report by Terje Roed-Larsen, a UN envoy charged with assessing compliance, is expected to say that Syria has not properly implemented resolution 1559.
It will charge Syria with keeping indirect military control of Lebanon through its agents in the army, intelligence organisations and the Lebanese administration.
The double blow from the UN reports is bound to increase Syria's isolation, although western states are not united on how far to go in pressing Mr Assad and no threat of sanctions is imminent.
"The US wants regime-change. France doesn't want to see the regime fall for fear of chaos or civil war, and the Brits are not sure, because they don't know what will follow," Nadim Shehadi, acting head of the Middle East programme at Chatham House in London, said yesterday.
US Secretary of State Dr Condoleezza Rice and British foreign secretary Jack Straw declined to specify yesterday what measures they wanted from their colleagues, but the decision to summon foreign ministers would "send out a very sharp message to the Syrians", Mr Straw told the BBC.
Any proposal for sanctions on Syria is unlikely to be supported by China and Russia. But the security council will probably insist that Syria allow its top officials to be interviewed by Detlev Mehlis, the UN-appointed German prosecutor, who said in his interim report on Friday that the decision to kill Mr Hariri "could not have been taken without the approval of top-ranked Syrian security officials".
Mr Mehlis was given only written answers to questions put to senior Syrians. When he and his team did interview a few lower-ranking officials directly, they were accompanied by unidentified men who appeared to be intelligence agents.
Syria has rejected the Mehlis report, saying that it is "based on prejudices and reaches conclusions that bring Syria into the circle of blame, spreading slander without any proof".
Since the Mehlis report came out, Syria has softened its position. Analysts believe that Damascus will try to give enough co-operation to minimise pressure from the three western countries, but not so much as to cause splits or mutinies in its own ranks.
"The option for Syria is either be treated like Iraq, or like Libya with a Lockerbie-style offer, to be let off the hook in return for certain services. The United States is more concerned about Syria's role in Iraq. The French are more concerned about Lebanon," said Mr Shehadi.
- (Guardian service)