Russia hit out on Tuesday at a UN resolution proposed by European nations that condemns Syria’s deadly crackdown on anti-regime protests, describing it as “unacceptable.”
Britain, France, Germany and Portugal had dropped the word “sanctions” from their draft text in a bid to win over members of the UN Security Council, but it was not enough to avoid opposition from veto-wielding Russia.
“The text that Western nations are planning to put up for a vote is clearly unacceptable,” Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov told Interfax news agency.
Western governments and human rights watchdogs have expressed mounting criticism of the council’s failure to adopt any resolution on Syria since protests erupted in March drawing an iron-fisted response from President Bashar al-Assad’s regime. More than 2,700 people have died in the crackdown, according to the United Nations. In the latest violence, at least nine people were killed on Tuesday, including six civilians, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Four died in clashes near the border with Turkey between troops and deserters unwilling to shoot at protesters and the others in central Homs province, it said, adding communist activist Mustafa Ahmad Ali, 52, was gunned down in Homs on Monday.
Another seven bodies, including those of two children, were discovered in the city of Homs, said the Observatory. In a report released on Tuesday, rights watchdog Amnesty International said the Assad regime’s campaign of intimidation and harassment extended even to Syrians living overseas.
And France warned the regime in Damascus against using its agents to incite violence abroad after Syrian exiles were attacked in Paris during pro-democracy protests.
Prior to Tuesday’s statement, Russia had said it would use its right as a permanent member of the Security Council to veto any resolution which talks of “targeted measures” rather than overt sanctions. Moscow has proposed its own rival draft resolution with no threat of action. But this has not yet been formally proposed for a vote. The current European draft “strongly condemns the continued grave and systematic human right violations by the Syrian authorities” and demands an immediate end to “all violence”.
The resolution would call for the “targeted measures” if the Syrian government fails to comply within 30 days.
The announcement came after the US Treasury Department moved to block the sale of telecommunications equipment to Syria, the latest in a series of unilateral sanctions.
On August 17, President Barack Obama signed an executive order authorising sanctions against Assad’s regime because of what the White House termed a “continuing escalation of violence against the people of Syria.”
And in a sign that the sanctions are beginning to bite, Syria revoked a week-old law banning luxury imports. The retraction was due to the “negative impact (the law) had on the market, especially the soaring prices of several products,” Trade and Economy Minister Mohammed Nidal al-Shaar said, quoted by SANA state news agency.
