UN General Assembly set to condemn Syrian crackdown

PanARMENIAN.Net - With the UN Security Council deadlocked over the Syrian crisis, the General Assembly prepared Friday, August 3, to denounce the Assad regime for using tanks, artillery, helicopters and warplanes on the people of Aleppo and Damascus and demand that it keep its chemical and biological weapons under strict control.

The resolution was expected to easily pass in the 193-member General Assembly after its Arab sponsors weakened two key provisions — a demand that President Bashar Assad resign and a call for other nations to place sanctions on Syria over its civil war.

With the tougher language, the Saudi resolution had been in danger of falling below 100 votes and would have been seen as weak and lacking moral authority. General Assembly resolutions are unenforceable.

The original draft calling for Assad to resign was opposed by Russia and China, which have cast a double veto in the more powerful Security Council three times to kill resolutions that could have opened the door to sanctions on Syria, or even military intervention.

The revised resolution takes a swipe at Russia and China by "deploring the Security Council failure" to act.

A frustrated former U.N. chief Kofi Annan resigned Thursday as the joint U.N.-Arab League envoy to Syria after his peace proposals failed, according to The Associated Press.