LONDON - British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw told "friendless" Syria on Monday it faced being hauled up by the UN Security Council again if it made the serious error of remaining uncooperative.

Straw was in New York for a meeting of the United Nations Security Council, which unanimously adopted a resolution demanding full Syrian cooperation with the UN probe into the murder of Lebanon's ex-premier Rafiq Hariri but dropping any immediate threat of sanctions.

"The message around the table today was very clear: cooperate, or you'll be back, Syria," Straw told BBC television from New York.

"If Syria does not meet these conditions, it would be a major political error. It is pretty friendless at the moment," he said, calling Syrian claims before the Security Council that it had been cooperating an "embarrassment".

A UN report on the February 14 assassination, released earlier this month, implicated top Syrian officials and accused Damascus of being uncooperative over the probe.

"In terms of all its key operational paragraphs, this resolution is unamended from earlier drafts and it's very tough," Straw said.

"It's very clear, too, on Syria. They've got to cooperate with the prosecutor, down to and including the arrest and detention of suspects named by the prosecutor, so that the prosecutor is then able to interview those suspects in a manner that the prosecutor choses -- not that the government of Syria chooses."

Straw, representing one of the Security Council's five permanent members, said the resolution was "the firmest and toughest kind of resolution you can have".

Syria has denied any involvement in the February bomb blast that killed Hariri and 20 others on the Beirut seafront.

To gain crucial support from veto-wielding China and Russia as well as Algeria, the only Arab member of the council, Britain, France and the United States dropped a reference threatening economic and diplomatic sanctions under the UN Charter.

Straw insisted the council was united on cracking down on Syrian non-cooperation with the probe.

"They (China and Russia) know you cannot have a situation where there are high suspicions that one member state of the United Nations, Syria, may have been implicated in the assassination of a former prime minister of another member state of the United Nations.

"This is plainly extremely threatening to international peace and security. They know that resolving this in a satisfactory way and with justice is essential to stability in the Middle East."

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