“No deals” with Assad on court – Rice

 

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice ruled out Wednesday any deal with Syria to keep President Bashar al-Assad”s regime or family from being implicated in former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri”s 2005 assassination.

 

Senator Arlen Specter told Rice during a Senate committee”s hearing that Jordan”s King Abdullah II recently told him that Assad was concerned about the Special Tribunal that will try suspects in the Hariri killing. Specter floated the idea of negotiations with Damascus to gain political progress in the region in exchange for reduced sentences in the case.

 

Abdullah “said that the item that is most on the mind of … Assad is the action of the international tribunal which could lead to his indictment,” he said.

 

But Rice responded: “I don”t think that it would be appropriate to suggest that we might be willing to limit the scope of this tribunal … because it might somehow implicate either the regime or the Assad family.”
 

“I know that has been on their mind, but I think that would be a very bad step. I think it would be bad for Lebanon, and bad for international justice,” she ssaid.

 

Rice recalled that the tribunal has not been formed yet and that Washington has be careful not to politicize it.

 

“Our efforts have been not to focus the tribunal toward Syria, or about Syria, or about the Assad family, but rather to try and ensure the smooth … working of the tribunal,” she said. “The tribunal was created under a United Nations Security Council resolution and it needs to take place with integrity.”

 

Specter said: “I am inclined to agree with you about that.”

 

A UN probe has implicated senior Syrian officials in the Hariri assassination.

 

Picture: US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice gestures as she testifies before the Senate Appropriations Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, April 9, 2008.REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst (UNITED STATES)