The UN ambassadors of Russia and China have issued a rare double-veto against an Arab League-backed draft resolution about the situation in Syria.
The Security Council text was based on language drawn up by the Arab League, and in particular Qatar, which had advocated a timeline for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to step aside and transition power to a deputy. With reports of another 200 deaths in the Syrian town of Homs, many fear the civil war-like situation is taking a turn for the worse.
The U.S., along with Britain and France, had hoped efforts to tone down the text’s language and stress that the resolution did not call for a military response would wear down Moscow and Beijing’s resistance. They had also hoped that the backing of the Arab League would pressure Russia and China into supporting the resolution on the grounds that it was being advocated by powers in the region, and not just being pushed by Western states. A similar situation happened in the run-up to the resolution that NATO ultimately used to legitimize its air operation in Libya, and observers have long thought Russia and China have grown wary of being put into that bind again. Consequently they issued today’s double-veto, which is the first joint veto since they shot down targeted sanctions against Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe when he was accused of stealing the country’s last presidential election.
