BEIRUT — Syria said on Thursday it would not let a U.N. murder inquiry question President Bashar al-Assad about the death of Lebanese ex-premier Rafik al-Hariri.
But Information Minister Mahdi Dakhl-Allah said Damascus had not ruled out any meeting between Assad and the investigators.
"There is a difference between a questioning and an audience. The president receives visitors from Syria and outside Syria," he told Reuters.
In an earlier interview, Dakhl-Allah was asked if Syria rejected a presidential meeting with the U.N. team. "Certainly, because the issue is related to Syria's sovereignty ... This is a red line that cannot be crossed," he told Egyptian radio.
He said Syria would still cooperate with the U.N. inquiry into Hariri's assassination in a Beirut bomb blast on February 14.
The United States said it was concerned Assad refused to be interviewed in the inquiry.
"Syria is obliged to abide by the terms of security council resolutions. They are clearly not cooperating and this is a matter of serious concern," State Department spokesman Adam Ereli told reporters.
The United States could take up the issue again if it did not work with the inquiry, Ereli added, echoing comments made by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Wednesday.
The U.N. Security Council has threatened Syria with "further action" if it does not cooperate fully with the investigators, who asked last month to interview Assad, his foreign minister, Farouq al-Shara, and other officials.
Diplomats say Syria has indicated it will let Shara meet the U.N. team. He will not be among four Syrians that sources close to the inquiry said would be questioned in Vienna next week.
Khaddam Accuses Assad
Former Syrian Vice President Abdel-Halim Khaddam has accused Assad of ordering Hariri's killing. The inquiry has implicated Syrian officials and pro-Syrian Lebanese security chiefs.
Syria has denied any role in the blast that killed Hariri and 22 others on Beirut's seafront and.
Asked if he thought Assad was directly responsible for Hariri's assassination, Khaddam, now based in Paris, told Britain's Sky Television: "In my belief, yes, my personal belief is that he ordered it."
"But at the end of the day there is an investigation. They must give the final decision."
Lebanese Druze leader Walid Jumblatt also said he suspected Assad was involved and that his refusal to be questioned suggested he was shunting the blame onto his security apparatus.
"It is like he is trying to say he has nothing to do with it and that he does not control his security agencies," Jumblatt told Reuters. "I never thought Bashar al-Assad is innocent."
Sources familiar with the inquiry said it would question four Syrians, including former intelligence chief in Lebanon Lieutenant General Rustom Ghazali, in Vienna on Monday.
Investigators have already questioned him and identified him as a suspect.
The four also include Hosam Hosam, a witness who had implicated Syrian officials in the assassination but who later fled Beirut for Syria, where he said his accusations were false.
Syria dominated Lebanon during and after the 1975-1990 civil war. It ended its 29-year military presence in its neighbor in April amid an international outcry over Hariri's murder.
Asked about his remarks to Egyptian radio, Dakhl-Allah said it was a misinterpretation to say that Assad refused to meet the inquiry team and suggested that he was willing to receive a visit so long as it did not represent a breach of sovereignty.
"Syria reaffirms the principle of cooperation with the international investigation committee on the principle that any request it presents should be based on acknowledged legal foundations and international immunities," he told Reuters.
He repeated Syria's demand for a legal framework with the inquiry "that entails the procedures of dealing with Syria at all levels with affirmation on respecting Syria's sovereignty".
Additional reporting by Alaa Shahine in Beirut, Inal Ersan in Damascus and Amil Khan in Cairo
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