WASHINGTON -- Dismissing a qualified offer by Syrian President Bashar Assad to cooperate with a U.N. investigation of the assassination of a former Lebanese prime minister, the State Department on Thursday ruled out setting conditions for the probe.
If investigator Detlev Mehlis "wants something he should get it, and he should get it without delay and without complication and without obfuscation," said the department's deputy spokesman, Adam Ereli.
Mehlis has accused Syria of refusing to cooperate with his inquiry into the slaying of Rafik Hariri last February in Beirut and concluded it could not have been carried out without the cooperation of senior Syrian officials.
Assad responded Thursday with an offer to cooperate, but warned it would cease if Syria was going to be harmed.
The Syrian president also said Mehlis had refused his country's offer to have Syrian officials questioned on Syrian territory, even in U.N. offices there, or at the Arab League's office in Cairo.
That decision, and others, are for Mehlis to make, said Ereli, citing a U.N. Security Council resolution as authority.
"It calls for Syria to make individuals requested by the commission fully available to the commission," Ereli said. "And it also gives the commission the authority to determine the location and modalities for the interviews."
Ereli added: "It's up to the commission to decide what it wants and it's up to Syria to respond positively to the commission. It's not up to Syria to negotiate terms."
At the United Nations in New York, U.S. Ambassador John R. Bolton said, "What we want are not speeches or words. We want cooperation, full and complete, and immediate, with Commissioner Mehlis."
En route to the Middle East, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice dismissed as a stalling tactic an offer by Syria to conduct its own investigation.
"I don't think this constitutes cooperation," Rice said.
A unanimous vote by the Security Council demanding Syria's cooperation with U.N. investigators "couldn't have been clearer," Rice said, adding that Syria is expected to provide whatever the U.N. inquiry requests.
