BEIRUT: Syria's highest political body rejected a UN report implicating it in the killing of former Lebanese Premier Rafik Hariri over the weekend, while the U.S. and Britain demanded a "firm" international stand against Damascus and France urged economic sanctions.

The international comments came as the U.S., the U.K. and France were preparing resolutions critical of Syria for the Security Council, expected to meet Tuesday to discuss the report. But Russia, which warned Saturday against politicizing the Security Council's decision, might not accept severe sanctions against Syria.

In an interview with BBC Television, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said: "I am quite sure that when the international community gets together we will decide what to do but it can't be ... just left lying on the table. This really has to be dealt with," she added.

British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, who was also in the interview, said: "The report indicates that people of a high level of this Syrian regime were implicated. We also have evidence from the Mehlis report of false testimony being given. This is very serious."

Calling on Syria to cooperate with the UN investigation into the assassination, French Defense Minister Michele Alliot-Marie said in an interview published Sunday that any country involved should face economic sanctions.

"It demands a deeper investigation," Alliot-Marie said to Le Parisien newspaper, adding, "Syria must respect all the rules of the international community."

Romania, which currently holds the rotating presidency of the Security Council, also joined other Western countries in issuing a "serious warning" to Syria. Romanian President Traian Basescu said Sunday after meeting U.S. National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley that Syria should be warned by the Security Council to stop being "a factor of instability" in the Middle East.

Syria, however, continued Sunday to reject the UN report. The National Progressive Front, which groups eight parties headed by President Bashar Assad's Baath Party, described the report as being "full of contradictions" and as having "distorted the truth and the facts."

"The parties trying to harm Syria will use the political issues contained in the report ... which is based on testimony from people who lack all credibility," it said in a statement.

Syria promised Saturday to cooperate in the future with the probe.

Some 100 Syrian lawyers demonstrated Sunday near the UN headquarters in Damascus to protest the UN report and urge UN chief Kofi Annan to block any resolution against Syria.

Meanwhile, Syrian officials continued to cast doubts over the credibility of the Mehlis report. Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Walid Moallem denied Sunday that he had threatened Hariri days before he was assassinated.

"I did not go to Premier Hariri to make threats. I went to him to inform him about my mission and ask him to cooperate in order for the mission to succeed," Moallem said in a call-in talk show on Syrian state television.

Moallem said his relations with Hariri were based on friendship and that they had worked together since the 1980s.

The UN report said that testimony given by Moallem contradicted a tape in which Hariri complained that security services were waging a campaign against him during a conversation with Moallem days before his assassination.

Rallying behind their regional ally, Iran praised Damascus Sunday for cooperating with the UN probe, saying the report should not be "politicized" and urged the world against rushing to judgment.

Russia also called for caution so as to prevent new tensions in a volatile region. Russia's Foreign Ministry spokesman Mikhail Kamynin said Saturday that the report would require a "thorough study and analysis."

"We are convinced that the settlement of this problem should in no way lead to the emergence of a new hotbed of tension and further destabilization in the Middle East," Kamynin said in a statement posted on the ministry's Web site.

Earlier on Saturday, Syrian Foreign Ministry adviser Riad Dawoodi said at a news conference that Syria might allow UN investigators to question Syrian officials, but denied Damascus had not cooperated fully with investigators.

"If there is any demand coming from the commission we will discuss it with the commission and we might agree," he said.

But Dawoodi insisted the report was based on "presumptions and allegations," and accused anti-Syrian witnesses of lying to tie the Damascus regime to the murder.

"I believe the report needs to be put aside and the investigation continued till (the investigators) have convincing facts," Dawoodi said. "This report could not be used in court."

Dawoodi suggested that the Arabs' longtime foe, Israel, could have been behind the killing, and claimed that Mehlis relied on "witnesses that lack credibility."

No official statement has been issued by any Arab state on the Mehlis report, with the obvious exception of the two countries in question.

Comments from Egyptian presidency spokesman Suleiman Awad reported by the Arab daily Ash-Sharq al-Awssat said that "Egypt is currently studying the report," and added that the report should not be read hastily since it contained a lot of elements.


GHAZI KENAAN: DEATH OR SUICIDE?

An article in Kuwaiti's As-Siyassah said Syria's late Interior Minister Ghazi Kenaan was killed by head of Syria's overall intelligence and Assad's brother-in-law, Assef Shawkat, one of the main suspects in Hariri's murder.

Following a phone call with Kenaan, one of the main witnesses of the UN commission investigating Hariri's murder, Shawkat sent his officers to Kenaan's office and shot him in the mouth, the newspaper said.

The article claims the story of Kenaan's suicide and the tape of the interview which Kenaan gave to "Voice of Lebanon" radio shortly before his death were fabricated later.