WASHINGTON - US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice vowed Thursday that pressure on Syria to cooperate with the UN probe into the murder of Lebanon's former prime minister, Rafiq Hariri, would not let up until the full truth was uncovered.

"The pressure is not going to release on Syria until the truth is known about what happened to Hariri and until the Syrians are fully willing to cooperate," Rice told reporters at a breakfast meeting.

Rice said she was satisfied that the international community had made clear to the Syrian regime that it had better cooperate with the UN probe or face isolation.

"I think the Syrians are getting a consistent message about this and we will see what they do," Rice said.

"The broader point is that we have to get to the bottom of what happened in the Hariri assassination and it has to be done because there should be no residual intimidation of the Lebanese people by Syrian forces or by Syrian allied forces either in retaliation for what is going on with the Hariri investigation or simply to sow fear," she added.

Rice said the United States was concerned about continued political assassinations in Lebanon, the last of which targeted anti-Syrian MP and newspaper magnate Gibran Tueni in December.

The UN probe into Hariri's murder in February of last year in Beirut has already implicated Lebanese and Syrian officials, and UN officials have requested interviews with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Foreign Minister Faruq al-Shara.

Former Syrian vice president Abdel Halim Khaddam, who is now living in Paris, charged last week that Assad had threatened Hariri just a few months before the assassination.

Copyright © 1999-2005 Lebanonwire^®.com. All rights reserved.