UNITED NATIONS - Syria was under mounting pressure Monday to fully cooperate with a UN probe into the murder of former Lebanese premier Rafiq Hariri as the UN Security Council was set to hear a briefing on a report implicating senior Syrian security officials.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the United States and other countries were seeking to hold a ministerial-level meeting of the Security Council on Monday of next week.

But UN diplomats said no agreement had yet been reached on a firm date for this ministerial session as Washington, Paris and London spearheaded the push for action against Syria in the wake of the release of a damning report last week that found "converging evidence of both Syrian and Lebanese involvement."

Tuesday, the council was to hear a briefing by German prosecutor Detlev Mehlis, who wrote the report and led the four-month UN probe into the Hariri murder.

The report detailed a chilling plan to trail, threaten and kill Hariri.

Damascus has denied any role in the February bomb blast that killed Hariri and 20 others on the Beirut seafront, and has rejected the probe's findings as politically biased, incomplete and "a big lie."

In Paris, French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy Monday called for unanimous adoption of a UN Security Council resolution demanding that Syria cooperate fully with the investigation.

"We want justice, nothing but justice" for the Hariri slaying, he noted, but made clear that a resolution should focus only on this issue.

Speaking to reporters en route to Canada, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice suggested a flexible US approach to UN Security Council talks on action to punish Damascus for its alleged involvement in the Hariri murder.

Rice said the United States has other issues with Syria including its continuing influence in Lebanon, "so we'll take a look at the total pictures as well."

But she added, "if people want to sequence it, fine. We can sequence it."

Damascus is facing additional pressure with an upcoming UN report looking at whether it has abided by a UN resolution to respect Lebanon's sovereignty.

UN envoy Terje Roed-Larsen was due to hand over the report this week examining implementation of Security Council Resolution 1559, which was designed to end Syrian domination of Lebanon and extend the government's authority throughout the country.

For his part, US ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton on Monday demanded "substantive cooperation" from Damascus.

"This is 'true confessions' time now for the government of Syria," Bolton told reporters. "No more obstruction, no more half measures, we want substantive cooperation and we want it immediately."

Asked whether some countries might oppose a draft resolution demanding full Syrian cooperation, Britain's UN envoy Emyr Jones Parry replied: "I would certainly hope not".

Several council members, including veto-wielding China and Russia, are generally reluctant to resort to sanctions by the Security Council.

But British Prime Minister Tony Blair refused to rule out sanctions against Syria on Monday, stressing the seriousness of the Mehlis report.

"Any implication of the involvement of Syria or any other country is something the international community has got to treat with the most fundamental seriousness and gravity, because it calls into question the whole of our relationship not just with that country - but our ability to make sure the rule of law is enforced internationally," Blair told Sky News.

"I don't think you rule anything out in going forward," Blair said when questioned about the possibility of sanctions by Sky News television.

Britain's Foreign Minister Jack Straw told the foreign affairs committee in Parliament that UN members would condemn murder of political opponents.

"You cannot have a member of the United Nations, which has subscribed to the Charter on Human Rights and much else besides, deciding that the way it resolves its problems is having people, at least at a pretty senior level, complicit in the murder of political opponents," Straw said.

And Dutch Foreign Minister Bernard Bot, speaking in Washington after talks with Rice, said his country would welcome an international trial at The Hague to prosecute suspects in the Hariri murder.

In Beirut, Lebanon's two main Shiite groups Hezbollah and Amal called for a more serious probe of the Hariri murder and said they opposed any sanctions being slapped on Syria.

UN chief Kofi Annan stressed that while the Mehlis panel had done a substantial part of its work, its mission was not completed.

"This is the beginning of the process, not the end," Annan said, recalling that he had extended the mandate of the Mehlis commission until December 15 to enable it to finish its work.

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