Syria will offer help to Hariri tribunal when sovereignty not involved: president

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad stressed on Thursday that the country would offer any help on the assassination case of former Lebanese premier Rafik Hariri as required by an international tribunal when it did not involve the national sovereignty of Syria.

Assad made the remarks in a televised address to the newly elected People's Assembly (parliament).

Assad told the parliament that the international tribunal's request should not violate Syria's sovereignty, adding that "any cooperation requested from Syria that compromises national sovereignty is totally rejected."

Assad said that Syria supported what the Lebanese agreed upon and Lebanon's peace was Syria's.

Hariri was killed in a massive truck bomb in Beirut in February 2005, for which senior Syrian officials has been implicated by a UN probe.

Damascus, however, denied any role in the killing, but was forced to withdraw its troops from its smaller neighbor, ending a 29-year military presence there.

The National Progressive Front, a political coalition led by Syria's ruling al-Baath party won the majority of the 250-member People's Assembly (parliament) in the elections held in April.

The front, which has won every election since its formation in 1973, took 172 seats, 5 more than the minimum quota of 167 seats reserved for it under the constitution, and the other 78 seats went to independents.

Source: Xinhua