Russia submits new draft resolution on Syria to UN

PanARMENIAN.Net - Russia's UN delegation on Friday, Dec 23, submitted a revised draft resolution on Syria to the UN Security Council, but Germany said it did not go far enough in addressing Western concerns about the escalating violence there, Reuters reports.

Russian UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin said Moscow had limits on how much it would accommodate the demands of the European and U.S. delegations, which would like the 15-nation council to threaten sanctions on Damascus over its nine-month-old crackdown on protesters.

"If the requirement is that we drop all reference to violence coming from extreme opposition, that's not going to happen," Churkin told reporters.

"If they expect us to have arms embargo, that's not going to happen," he said. "We know what arms embargo means these days. It means that - we saw it in Libya - that you cannot supply weapons to the government but everybody else can supply weapons to various opposition groups."

Western envoys have said they would like to see a UN arms embargo imposed on Syria. They also reject the idea of equating Syria's opposition with the government security forces, who they say have been responsible for most of the violence.

German Ambassador Peter Wittig said the latest Russian draft did not go far enough in satisfying the demands of the Western powers, which had also criticized an earlier Russian draft submitted to council members as too weak.

"So far the Russian draft, the Russian suggestions, are insufficient," he told reporters. "We need to put the weight of the council behind the Arab League, behind all the decisions of the Arab League in (their) entirety."