Region | Syria
Russia tells UN to rule out Syria military intervention
Moscow will also veto draft resolution if it suggests arms embargo
- Gulf News Report
- Published: 00:00 February 2, 2012
- Image Credit: Reuters
- Anti-government protesters carry coffins during the funeral of two protesters killed in earlier clashes in Homs, on Tuesday. The banner reads: ‘A nation with its leader Prophet Mohammad [PBUH], will not kneel”.
Dubai: Russia on Wednesday signalled that it would veto a draft UN resolution calling for a political transition in Syria unless it explicitly ruled out military intervention as continued fierce clashes claimed 60 more lives across the violence-wracked country.
"If the text is unacceptable then we will vote against," Vitaly Churkin, Moscow's envoy to the United Nations, was quoted as saying. "We will not allow a text to be adopted that we consider to be incorrect and will lead to a deepening of the conflict. We are openly telling our partners this."
Churkin said Russia was pushing for a text "in which it would be clear that no foreign military intervention will be used in the context of the Syria crisis".
Russia, the main foreign weapons supplier to Syria, is also strongly against the inclusion of even the "hint of a [weapons] embargo" against Damascus in the UN resolution.
Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov said: "There is not going to be any vote at all in the coming days."
Meanwhile, Syrian troops battled army defectors in a string of towns in the mountains overlooking Damascus in a renewed bid to crush rebellious areas around the capital, activists, cited by AP news agency, said.
The battles in a mountain valley came after forces loyal to President Bashar Al Assad succeeded in largely retaking the suburbs on the eastern side of the capital during a week-long offensive that has seen some of the bloodiest clashes in the 11-month-old uprising.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said among yesterday's casualties of 60, at least eight were killed in Homs while 24 were killed in fighting in the Damascus region, among them a three-year-old child and a 25-year-old woman.
Meanwhile, an Arab League meeting of foreign ministers to discuss the situation in Syria has been postponed until February 11, Egypt's state news agency said yesterday. The meeting will be held at the League's Cairo headquarters.
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