BEIRUT, Lebanon, October 12 (Lebanonwire) -- Syria needs to work with UN investigators on UN 1595 and cooperate with the implementation of UN 1559, US Secretary of State Condoleezaa Rice told reporters before a trip to Central Asia, An Nahar daily reported.

According to an article published by Newsweek magazine, Rice had reportedly told high ranking American officials earlier this month that “the diplomatic isolation of Syrian President Bashar Assad is working as Detlev Mehlis gets ready to issue his report on the findings of the UN 1595 probe, which could implicate Syria in the former Premier Rafik Hariri’s murder.”

Before departing on an official trip to Central Asia,Rice further asked Syria to support UN 1559 by refraining from using “extremist” Palestinian factions including those that exist in Lebanon, and stop the flooding of rebels into Iraq.

Commenting on a recent meeting Assad held with a number of Palestinian factions Rice said “I don’t understand how Assad could hold a press conference with the same people who spoke about destroying peace in the Palestinian territories.”

US State Department Deputy Spokesman Adam Ereli reiterated RIce's statements by saying Tuesday “intense US diplomatic efforts to isolate Syria are working.” “There is a price to pay for Syria’s conduct in Lebanon, Iraq and Palestine” and referring to Mehlis’s report, “there are a number of developments that will determine our next steps.”

Ereli said that the US was successful in bringing Syria to withdraw from Lebanon and isolating it from the international community “and the pressure is on to force them to make certain decisions, of course the correct ones.”

For his part, French Ambassador to Syria Francois Gerard said that France does not support enforcing sanctions on Syria and is against destabilizing any country and in particular Syria, but said that his country is for the full implementation of UN 1595.

Relations between the two countries had been tense ever since France backed UN 1559 which called on Syria to withdraw from Lebanon. “I read that France wants to punish Syria, but that’s not true, because we never supported sanctions or diplomatic isolation or punishment of the Syrian people,” Gerard said during a television interview in Syria.

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