'No deals' with Assad on court - Rice

by **Admin** Thu Apr 10, 2008 6:48 am

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)