CAIRO - Syrian President Bashar al-Assad he would only agree to testify before a UN team investigating the murder of five-time Lebanese premier Rafiq Hariri if their request had a legal basis, in remarks published Saturday.

"We have said several times over that we are ready to cooperate with the UN commission of inquiry but this cooperation must be on a legal basis," he told the Cairo weekly Al-Usbuh.

Newspapers in Lebanon seized on the implicit refusal to be questioned, which came less than a week after investigators announced they wanted to interview the president as part of its inquiry into last February's assassination.

Commission spokesman Nasrat Hassan said Monday that the team wanted to speak to Assad as well as Foreign Minister Faruq al-Shara and former vice president Abdul Halim Khaddam, who in a shock interview last week said only Assad could have ordered an intelligence service role in Hariri's assassination.

Khaddam told AFP in Paris Saturday that he had been questioned by investigators about his accusations this week in Paris, where he and his family no live. Beirut newspapers said the interview took place Friday.

Shara had told the UN Security Council on December 15 that he was ready to talk to the UN commission.

He was speaking during a debate on a council resolution which extended the commission's mandate for six months.

Two interim reports by the UN team have implicated Syria over Hariri's assassination in a massive bomb blast on the Beirut seafront. Damascus has repeatedly denied any role.

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