***** "Syria Wants New Rules For Cooperation On UN Probe" *****
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Wednesday December 28, 2005
Courtesy of: http://today.reuters.com/news/home.aspx

Damascus (Reuters)--Syria said on Wednesday it wanted to lay fresh ground rules for cooperation with the new chief of a UN team investigating the killing of a Lebanese former Prime Minister, Rafik al-Hariri.

"we want to agree on a protocol for cooperation to identify the meaning of cooperation...and what is required before it can be said that Syria has cooperated fully and unconditionally with the international committee," Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk al-Shara told politicians from parties allied with the ruling Baath party.

Shara said there was no reason for the new chief investigator, expected to be Belgian Prosecutor Serge Brammertz, not to sign such a deal when he takes over this month.

"let us forget the former committee led by Mehlis. The new committee has no interest in not signing an agreement or memorandum of understanding," Shara said, adding that the
inquiry had failed to produce compelling evidence against Syria.

Mehlis, who was appointed in May to lead the probe, has chosen not to renew his contract, citing personal reasons.

His official role with the UN ends this month, when he is widely expected to be replaced by Brammertz, Deputy Prosecutor of the Hague-based International Crime Court.

Comment:
That's a wise move on the Syrians part, to have all the parameters established beforehand, because international politics and diplomacy depend on being as vague as possible, in order to give a nation or international body sufficient maneuvering room to operate and to inject "their definitions" as they see them to be in the agreements that were formulated.

Syria, rightly so wants to avoid the web that Iraq (pre US invasion) was entangled in, when the US and UN constantly declared that Iraq wasn't cooperating, Iraq hasn't met it's obligations, Iraq is trying to avoid the UN inspection teams.

Therefore, by constantly being told that Iraq never cooperated, continues to lie and hide Its WMDs, they never saw the light at the end of the tunnel, they were damned if they did and damned if they didn't.

It took the US invasion to actually shed light on the truth and that is, Iraq had actually cooperated to the fullest, and had handed in and destroyed its WMDs, and that the actual liars were ultimately exposed...