Russia defends veto of ‘one-sided’ UN resolution

The Russian foreign ministry said yesterday a draft French UN Security Council resolution on Syria would have helped Islamist militants in the Aleppo area by protecting them from aerial bombing.

In a statement, the ministry also said the French text was politicised and one-sided.

Russia on Saturday vetoed the resolution, which demanded an end to air strikes on Aleppo and military over flights.

“An explicit attempt was made, by banning flights in the Aleppo area, to provide cover for the terrorists of Jabhat Al-Nusra and associated militants,” the ministry said.

A rival Russian draft text failed to get a minimum nine votes in favour. Moscow’s text removed the demand for an end to air strikes on Aleppo and put the focus back on a failed September 9th US/Russia ceasefire deal, which was annexed to the draft.

British UN ambassador Matthew Rycroft told Russian UN ambassador Vitaly Churkin: “Thanks to your actions today, Syrians will continue to lose their lives in Aleppo and beyond to Russian and Syrian bombing. Please stop now.”

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s forces, backed by Russian war planes and Iranian support, have been battling to capture eastern Aleppo, the rebel-held half of Syria’s largest city, where more than 250,000 civilians are trapped.

“Russia has become one of the chief purveyors of terror in Aleppo, using tactics more commonly associated with thugs than governments,” US deputy ambassador to the United Nations David Pressman told the council.

Slaughter

He said Russia was “intent on allowing the killing to continue and, indeed, participating in carrying it out” and that what was needed from Moscow was “less talk and more action from them to stop the slaughter.”

A UN resolution needs nine votes in favour and no vetoes to be adopted. The power of veto lies with the United States, France, Britain, Russia and China. The Russian text only received four votes in favour, so a veto was not needed to block it.

The French draft received 11 votes in favour, while China and Angola abstained. Venezuela joined Russia in voting against it. It was the fifth time Russia has used its veto on a UN resolution on Syria during the more than five-year conflict.

Hostility

Meanwhile, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said yesterday he had detected increasing US hostility towards Moscow and complained about what he said was a series of aggressive US steps that threatened Russia’s national security.

In an interview with Russian state television likely to worsen already poor relations with Washington, Lavrov blamed the Obama administration for what he described as a sharp deterioration in US-Russia ties.

“We have witnessed a fundamental change of circumstances when it comes to the aggressive Russophobia that now lies at the heart of US policy towards Russia,” Lavrov told First Channel TV. “It’s not just a rhetorical Russophobia, but aggressive steps that really hurt our national interests and pose a threat to our security.”

With relations between Moscow and Washington strained over issues from Syria to Ukraine, Lavrov reeled off a list of grievances against the US which he said had helped contribute to an atmosphere of mistrust that was in some ways more dangerous and unpredictable than the Cold War.

He said Nato had been steadily moving military infrastructure closer to Russia’s borders and lashed out at western sanctions imposed over Moscow’s role in the Ukraine crisis.

– Reuters