Saad al-Hariri meets Chirac; urges Syria to cooperate

Saad al-Hariri, the son of the murdered former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq al-Hariri, urged Syria to cooperate with the UN investigation committee warning that Syria's rejections to collaborate will bring the region to chaos.

Parliamentarian Saad al-Hariri, is the chairman of al-Mustaqbal bloc, the largest parliamentary bloc in the Lebanese parliament, met with the French President Jacques Chirac in order to discuss developments in the investigations.

Hariri told journalists after the meeting that, by the ultimate end, the Syrian file will be brought before the UN Security Council, if Damascus will not collaborate as wanted with the UN investigation committee.

He expressed his hope that Syria will cooperate so as its interests and that of Lebanon and the whole countries of the region are observed.

Replying to a question on whether he considers that President Bashar al-Assad as having ordered the killing of his father, Saad al-Hariri said "it was clear that my father was killed by a regime which was friendly to us."

He said that President Chirac was very "tough" in pressuring Syria to collaborate in this case, and that France is among countries pressuring Syria to collaborate with the UN investigators.