Three permanent members of the United Nations Security Council – the U.S., France and Britain – are circulating a joint resolution draft against Syria among council members.
The draft was prepared by the U.S. and French U.N. envoys – John Bolton and Jean-Marc de la Sabliere – after the Security Council heard a briefing by U.N. chief investigator Detlev Mehlis on his report implicating senior Syrian and Lebanese security officials in last February’s murder of former Lebanese premier Rafiq Al-Hariri.
The draft calls on Syria to “detain those Syrian officials or individuals whom the (U.N. enquiry) commission might consider as suspected of having been involved in this terrorist act, and make them fully and unconditionally available to the commission.” It also demanded that the Mehlis commission be allowed by Damascus “to interview Syrian officials or other individuals that the commission deems relevant to the enquiry outside Syria and/or outside the presence of any other Syrian official if the commission so requests.”
The U.S., Britain and France called for sanctions by all states against all individuals designated or who might be designated in the future by the panel as suspects in the murder. The sanctions include a travel ban and a freeze of assets.
China and Russia, the two other U.N. Security Council permanent members, made clear in a first round of meetings that they would oppose the draft resolution, unless the document undergoes changes, diplomats said.
For his part, Syrian President Bashar Al-Asad pledged in a letter sent to Washington, London and Paris, to prosecute Syrians linked to the Al-Hariri murder, The Washington Post reported on Wednesday.