DAMASCUS - Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, whose country is under pressure over a UN probe into former Lebanese premier Rafiq Hariri's murder, is to give a wideranging speech on Thursday, the state news agency SANA said Tuesday.

It said he would raise "current issues, political issues and the domestic situation" in Syria, without giving details.

The UN Security Council last week passed Resolution 1636 urging Syria to cooperate with Detlev Mehlis, the UN chief investigator into the Hariri murder, or face the consequences.

A preliminary report on the investigation pointed to the involvement of the Syrian and Lebanese security services in the massive Beirut bombing which killed Hariri and 20 other people.

Syria has vowed to cooperate with the UN probe and set up its own commission of inquiry into the February 14 killing. Information Minister Mehdi Dakhlallah told reporters in Damascus that the government had discussed the Security Council resolution on Tuesday.

He stressed the "importance for cohesion between the people and the leadership (of Syria) to back the position of Syria faced with (the international community)) which is using the assassination of Rafiq Hariri as a pretext to continue to apply pressure on Damascus."

"Syria will conduct itself with realism and flexibility as always", he said.

"The pressure that Damascus is under is the result of its refusal of the politics of hegemony, aggression and occupation in this region and in other parts of the world."

Copyright © 1999-2005 Lebanonwire^®.com. All rights reserved.