MR.
SOPEL: And I'm joined now by the U.S. Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice and the Foreign Secretary Jack Straw
-- both of you, welcome to The Politics Show.
Secretary Rice, you've spoken a lot on this trip about
democracy and civil rights and we'll come back to that.
I wanted to start with Syria, which is the issue that
has kind of come to dominate while you've been down here.
The President has called for a meeting of ministers this
week. Now, that is a pretty drastic measure. You don't
normally do that just to deliver a slap on the wrist at
the UN.
SECRETARY RICE: Well, this report calls for a firm response
from the international community. And it's a report that
has to be debated at the level of ministers. This is a
time when the Security Council needs to discuss this.
We haven't called for any specific action, but we do think
--
MR. SOPEL: What sort of action would you like to see?
SECRETARY RICE: Well, we will see. The first thing is
to have a review of this report, which is very disturbing.
You have, at the very least here, Syria not cooperating.
You have, of course, also the very strong implication
that Syria was involved somehow in the assassination of
former Prime Minister Hariri. So these are very serious
charges and they have to be debated at the level of foreign
minister. I'm quite certain that when the community gets
together, the international community gets together, we
will decide what to do. But it can't be -- as the Foreign
Secretary said yesterday -- just left lying on the table.
This really has to be dealt with.
MR.
SOPEL: Well, what sort of measures then, Jack Straw?
FOREIGN SECRETARY STRAW: Well, with respect, we can't
discuss the details of the resolution here on this program.
We've got to consult with our colleagues. But the mere
fact of having a Security Council meeting at ministerial
level will send out a very sharp message, indeed, to the
Syrians that this behavior, as reported by Prosecutor
Mehlis, is simply unacceptable. What we also know, from
the history of dealing with Syria following the assassination
of Rafik Hariri, that where the international community
is firm and united, in the end, the Syrian Government
gets the message and they have got to get the message
that you cannot have a government, if I may say so, at
any level going into assassinations.
MR. SOPEL: Well, you said it went to the highest level.
Did President Asad know about it?
FOREIGN SECRETARY STRAW: Well, we don't know that but
we do know is that the report indicates that people in
-- at the high level of this Syrian regime were implicated.
We also have evidence from the Mehlis report of false
testimony being given by senior people in the regime.
This is very serious.
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October 23, 2005
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