Chirac: I Accused al-Assad of Hariri’s Assassination without Evidences

Local Editor

The Syrian newspaper "al-Watan" revealed that the former French President Jacques Chirac acknowledged in his memoirs that he accused President Bashar al-Assad personally on giving the order for assassination of the Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, without having had any evidence.

In the second volume of his memoirs, Chirac wrote: "In my view, the responsibility of President Bashar al-Assad in the death of Rafik Hariri was not to be doubt although I had no evidence."

"On the following day of the assassination I requested from France's ambassador at the United Nations at the time Jean-Marc de LA SABLIERE to do everything possible in order to establish an international commission of inquiry as soon as possible to uncover the perpetrators and those who gave the orders for the assassination." Chirac said.
He added "I also told US President George W. Bush in the February 25, 2005, that I am convinced that this work cannot be done without experienced and systematic equipment in a reference to Damascus."

The former French president uncovered that he had sent his advisor Maurice Gourdault-Montagne to Damascus in November 2003 after the Iraq war to advise President al-Assad on behalf of France, Germany and Russia to take a diplomatic initiative that allows Syria to assert itself as willing to work for peace and stability.
Clarifying that the initiative which he was talking about concerned Lebanon, at the first level, the former French president continues: "However, President Bashar only asked the envoy if the message is from the Americans?"

Chirac claimed that President Assad "did not realize that it is his country's interest to establish an understanding with France to come out of isolation and avoid exclusion by those who classified his country as one the of evil axis countries."

Chirac narrates how after this incident, he began working with Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri since the beginning of 2004, to prepare a Security Council resolution demanding the withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon "there was no other option, and this can only be done in cooperation with the U.S."

Chirac said that "President Assad has kept pressures that threaten Lebanon despite the intervention of the United Nations and the issuance of a UN resolution," admitting that "he had worked with Washington and Condoleezza Rice directly to impose financial sanctions on Syria."

Chirac noted that the U.S. Secretary of State expressed complete agreement on the proposed sanctions, but "an unexpected tragedy changed the course of history in the fourteenth of February, by the assassination of Hariri."