United States and Russia at loggerheads over the Syrian Crisis at United Nations

Wrangling between the United States and Russia over the Syria crisis left the UN Security Council even further from reaching an accord on ways to end the bloodshed, diplomats said. Council members are now waiting to see if President
Bashar al-Assad keeps a commitment to respond by Tuesday to proposals made by UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan to end the killing, diplomats said.

The United States, Britain, France and Germany led calls for Russia and China to agree a Security Council resolution condemning the violence, which the UN says has left well over 7,500 dead in the past year. But Russia’s Foreign
Minister Sergei Lavrov said the West’s “ultimatums will not work” as he rebuffed pressure at a special council meeting on the Arab Spring uprisings.

“I add my voice to that of Mr Annan in urging President Assad to act swiftly, within the next few days, in response to the proposals put forward” by the envoy, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon told the meeting. “I appeal to the
Security Council to unite strongly behind ending the violence and supporting Mr Annan’s mission to help Syria pull back from the brink of a deeper catastrophe,” he added.

Assad has until Tuesday to give a response to peace proposals made by Annan, diplomats said. Annan said on leaving Damascus on Sunday that he had made “concrete proposals” to Assad on ending the killing in Syria and securing humanitarian
access to protest cities.

French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said the Syrian president had agreed to give an answer within “48 hours”. Senior diplomatic sources confirmed that a response was expected by early Tuesday. Russia and China have twice used their
powers as permanent Security Council members to veto resolutions on Syria, saying they were unbalanced and only sought regime change.

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Posted by Hamza Jahangir on Mar 14 2012. Filed under Latest News, USA, World. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry