New international pressure on Syria over Lebanon interference

France said it was preparing a new UN Security Council resolution on Syria's relations with Lebanon, while US President George W. Bush ordered an asset freeze against any suspect found to be involved in the assassination last year of former Lebanese premier Rafiq Hariri.

Bush did not name names, but pointedly cited a UN probe that has implicated senior Syrian officials and their Lebanese allies.

A US spokesman meanwhile took Syria to task for a laundry list of concerns while asserting that Washington and the international community "stand with the Lebanese people" and "support their call for national dignity, truth, and justice."

France said Wednesday that it was preparing a draft resolution that would urge Syria to respond to Lebanon's call for establishment of formal diplomatic ties between the two neighbors and for a demarcation of their common border.

France's UN envoy Jean-Marc de La Sabliere said he was consulting with other members of the Security Council and hoped to have a text ready "at the beginning of next week."

He noted that Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Siniora's call to Syria, made here Friday in an address, was "very important for the sovereignty and independence of Lebanon."

"It is important that Syria answers these requests," the French envoy said.

He spoke after a briefing of the 15-member Security Council by Terje Roed-Larsen, the UN envoy tasked with settling the Syrian-Lebanese dispute.

Speaking earlier, US Ambassador John Bolton said: "We think another resolution by the Security Council is warranted to highlight continued Syrian failure to comply with the requirements of (resolution) 1559."

Syria withdrew its troops from Lebanon in 2005 after 29 years of military and political domination of its smaller neighbor, in line with Security Council Resolution 1559 passed the previous year.

Roed-Larsen noted that a report by UN chief Kofi Annan stressed the need to disarm all Lebanese and non-Lebanese militias in order to fulfill the requirements of resolution 1559.

"We are encouraging Iran, Syria and also other countries and actors in the region who have influence related to the full implementation of 1559 to be helpful," he said.

The main militia is the military wing of the radical Islamic movement Hezbollah, backed by Syria and Iran, which faces off against Israel in the southern border area with Beirut's consent.

In Washington, the State Department said that "disarmament of militias and extension of effective Lebanese sovereignty throughout the entire country remain priorities.

"Syria must immediately end the flow of arms to militias within Lebanon and cooperate with the Lebanese government on border security," spokesman Adam Ereli said.

The world must hold Syria accountable, he said, until it "responds completely" to concerns about interference in Lebanon, insufficient action on the Iraqi border, sponsorship of Palestinian terrorist groups, as well as its cooperation with the UN probe of Hariri's murder.

The executive order Bush signed late Tuesday allows the United States to implement sanctions against any suspect identified by that probe under UN Resolution 1636, a US official explained.

"It does not block property immediately," the official said, "meaning that the individuals targeted in the assets freeze have yet to be determined."

Bush said that the freeze would apply to the assets of all those "involved in planning, sponsoring, organizing, or perpetrating the terrorist act in Beirut, Lebanon, on February 14, 2005, that are related to Hariri's assassination."

He further noted that individuals interviewed in the case had tried to impede the investigation "by giving false or inaccurate statements," and said a "senior official of Syria" had given false statements to the UN commission leading the probe.

Two reports by the UN commission of inquiry have implicated senior Syrian officials and their Lebanese allies in Hariri's murder in a massive bomb blast on the Beirut seafront on February 14 last year, which also killed another 22 victims.

Top UN investigator Serge Brammertz met Syrian President Bashar al-Assad Tuesday over the murder of Hariri. It was the first time UN investigators met Assad, who agreed to receive them but insisted it would be a "meeting and not an interrogation."

Syria has strongly denied any involvement in the killing and has accused the United Nations of bias.

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