BEIRUT: Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri has vowed not to give in to “threats” in a television interview, after his Hezbollah rivals ramped up rhetoric against a UN-backed probe into his father's murder. “Nobody can threaten me to force my hand. I don't act according to this logic. I don't give in to threats,” Hariri told the Arabic-language service of Russia Today ahead of a two-day visit to Moscow from Monday. “I'm ready for calm and constructive dialogue, but if someone comes to me and puts a knife to my throat and tells me how to work, this is unacceptable, Lebanon is not like that,” he said, according to a transcript of the interview provided by his office. Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah warned on Thursday that his powerful Shiite group would “cut off the hand” of anyone who tried to arrest any of its partisans over the 2005 assassination of former Premier Rafiq Hariri. His comments were the latest in a heated campaign Hezbollah has launched to fend off an anticipated accusation by the UN-backed Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) against its high-ranking members in connection with the assassination. The foreign minister of Syria, one of the main backers of Hezbollah, said on Sunday that Damascus would accept any indictment that is based on solid evidence. “The STL problem is a Lebanese affair and not a Syrian affair... but nobody will oppose an indictment that is based on irrefutable evidence,” Walid Muallem said in a meeting with diplomats in Damascus. “The statements and press articles conjuring up about the indictment before it is published aim to politicize the court and destabilize Lebanon,” he said. In his interview, Hariri described Lebanon's relationship with Syria as “excellent,” while cautioning that arrest warrants that Syria's judiciary has issued against people close to him were “illegal.” – Agence France
