BEIRUT, Lebanon - Lebanese Druze leader and prominent anti-Syrian MP Walid Jumblatt said Friday that relations with Syria have "reached a point of no return," citing steadily rising tensions since the February assassination of ex-premier Rafiq Hariri.

"Relations have reached a point of no return, because we cannot get along with this regime (Damascus) before knowing the truth about the assassination of Rafiq Hariri," Jumblatt told the Lebanese weekly newspaper Al Shiraa.

"The current (Syrian) regime has closed every door on reconciliation," said Jumblatt, a one-time ally of Syria.

He added that he nevertheless believed that "parties and men capable of offering the country a new horizon" still existed in Syria, Lebanon's larger neighbour and longtime powerbroker.

Damascus, already criticised by Washington for allegedly supporting terror in Iraq, has been under increasing international pressure since a preliminary UN probe report in October found evidence of top-level Syrian and Lebanese officials in the plot to kill Hariri.

Jumblatt is a key politician in the Lebanese parliamentary majority, led by the slain former prime minister's son Saad Hariri and made up of anti-Syrian legislators who took control of parliament for the first time in May-June elections.

Hariri was killed on February 14 along with 20 other people in a powerful explosion on the Beirut seafront. Damascus has denied any involvement.

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