CAIRO - Syria's foreign minister said on Tuesday that false witnesses misled an investigation into the killing of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri but that Damascus would cooperate with the new inquiry chief.

Belgian prosecutor Serge Brammertz is expected to take over as head of the international inquiry from German prosecutor Detlev Mehlis, who directly blamed the "Syrian authorities" for Hariri's murder in remarks published on Saturday.

Many Lebanese have long blamed Syria for the killing, but Damascus has denied the charges.

"We in Syria have decided that we will deal sincerely and constructively with the new head of the international committee and we will give him all possible assistance to reach the truth," Foreign Minister Farouq al-Shara told reporters.

"We don't want to tell him that such and such happened in the previous investigation -- that there were false witnesses whose intentions appeared afterwards and there were biased witnesses with narrow interests in Lebanon who gave statements that do not serve the investigation and the truth," Shara said.

"He (the new head) will discover these issues before he arrives in Damascus. But we will welcome him in Damascus," he said after a meeting between Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad in Cairo.

U.N. officials and diplomats said on Monday that the appointment of Brammertz, the deputy prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, could be announced on Tuesday or Wednesday.

Mehlis made clear in his reports to the Security Council that senior Syrian intelligence officials and their Lebanese allies were behind the killing of Hariri and 22 others in Beirut on February 14. He also accused Damascus of slow cooperation.

In comments carried by the Arabic newspaper Asharq al-Awsat on Saturday, Mehlis went further and directly blamed "Syrian authorities" for the first time. But he did not comment on the seniority of the officials involved.

Syria has dismissed the charges that it has been slow to cooperate and has also previously questioned the credibility of the witnesses.(Reuters)