BEIRUT, Lebanon, October 21 (Lebanonwire) -- On the eve of Lebanon receiving its official copy of the UN report delivered Thursday to UN chief Kofi Annan by German lead investigator Detlev Mehlis, Syrian President Bashar Assad pulled Lebanon into the regional melee saying it was not immune to the pressures exerted on Syria, Iran, Iraq and Palestine, daily Ad Diyar said today.

As preliminary information about the Detlev report has already began to surface through international media agencies who received an early copy of UN 1595’s findings into the former Premier Rafik Hariri’s murder probe, Assad preempted it by saying Lebanon cannot escape the pressures Syria and others are under.

Following a meeting yesterday with Kamal Shatila, the leader of the Lebanese People’s Congress and Asem Qanso, Secretary General of the Syrian Baath Party in Lebanon, Assad said “ I see things moving towards the same negative path, where there are no signs of improvements on the Iraqi front, nor an end to international pressures on Iran and Syria or solutions in Palestine in this very difficult and challenging period.”

“Lebanon is not isolated from all these events and the dangerous whirlwinds that surround the region,” Assad said.

As for the Mehlis report, said to contain 50 pages of evidence, Assad said, “we don’t have any information yet, but I’m sure we are innocent.”

Initial information coming by way of Agence France Press (AFP) indicates that Syrian and Lebanese officials were implicated in the probe. "There is converging evidence pointing at both Lebanese and Syrian involvement in this terrorist act, with the likely motive of the assassination being political," AFP said quoting the report.

"However, since the crime was not the work of individuals but rather of a sophisticated group, it very much seems that fraud, corruption and money-laundering could also have been motives for individuals to participate in the operation," the report added.

Prime Minister Fouad Siniora said he would make the report available for discussion during an extraordinary Cabinet session on Saturday. “This is a delicate situation, but I don’t believe Lebanese should worry about security repercussions stemming from the report’s findings,” Siniora said.

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