Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk al-Shara reasserted on Saturday his country's "full readiness" to cooperate with the UN probe in the killing of Lebanese ex-premier Rafik Hariri.

Shara made the remarks while holding meetings with Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa and EU foreign and security policy chief Javier Solana at a US-sponsored "Forum for the Future" heldin the Bahraini capital of Manama, Syria's official SANA newsagency reported.

Syria would exert efforts to make the UN commission led by chief investigator Detlev Mehlis a success, Shara was quoted as saying.

"It is important not to deviate from the commission's main mission and not investing it with targets that have nothing to do with this mission," Shara said.

Mehlis submitted to the United Nations an interim report on Oct.20, which implicated Syria's involvement in Hariri's murder.Damascus has strongly denied it and criticized it as politically motivated.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad insisted innocence in a defiant speech televised on Thursday, but vowed to fully cooperate with the probe.

The UN Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 1636 on Oct. 31 demanding Syria's full cooperation with the probe in Hariri's murder in February by a car bomb blast in Beirut, or face"further action".

Source: Xinhua