Russia and China again vetoed aWestern-backed U.N. resolution Thursday aimed at pressuring President BasharAssad's government to end the escalating 16-month conflict in Syria.
The 11-2 vote, with two abstentions from South Africa andPakistan, was the third double veto of a resolution addressing the Syria crisisby Damascus' most important allies.
The defeat leaves in limbo the future of the 300-strong U.N.observer mission in Syria, which was forced to suspend operations because ofthe intensified fighting. Its mandate, to monitor a cease-fire andimplementation of international envoy Kofi Annan's peace plan, expires Friday.
Britain's U.N. Ambassador Mark Lyall Grant, who sponsoredthe Western-backed draft, said he was "appalled" at the third doubleveto of a resolution aimed at bringing an end to the bloodshed in Syria andcreating conditions for political talks. The resolution had threatenedsanctions if the Syrian regime didn't quickly stop using heavy weapons.
"The consequence of their decision is obvious," hesaid. "Further bloodshed, and the likelihood of descent into all-out civilwar." Activists say more than 17,000 people have been killed since theuprising began in March 2011, most of them civilians.
"The consequence of today's action is the situationwill continue to deteriorate," U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice told reporters.
Russia's U.N. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin said the resolutionshould never have been put to a vote because the sponsors knew it had no chanceof adoption.
"We simply cannot accept a document under Chapter 7,one which would open the path for the pressure of sanctions and further toexternal military involvement in Syrian domestic affairs," he said.
The latest veto was a blow to Annan, the joint U.N.-ArabLeague envoy to Syria, who had called for "consequences" fornon-compliance with his six-point peace plan, which has been flouted by theAssad government.
The vote on the resolution was originally scheduled forWednesday, but Annan requested a delay and appealed to the council to unitebehind a new resolution. Moscow wouldn't budge, and the West insisted onincluding the threat of non-military sanctions under Chapter 7 of the U.N.Charter. That could eventually open the door to the use of military force.
Wednesday's delay was announced shortly after the deadlybombing of a high-level security meeting in Damascus that has made Assad's holdon power look increasingly tenuous. His whereabouts have been a mystery sincethe attack, though Syrian state TV said Assad attended the swearing-in of hisnew defense minister Thursday.
A frustrated, angry Lyall Grant said the attacks in Damascusover the last 48 hours "demonstrate the need for urgent and decisiveaction by the Security Council to stop the downward spiral into chaos whichwill claim many more innocent lives and affect the stability of theregion."
Annan's spokesman Ahmad Fawzi said the envoy "isdisappointed that at this critical stage the U.N. Security Council could notunite and take the strong and concerted action he had urged and hopedfor."
Churkin told the council he would not put Moscow's rivaldraft resolution to a vote to avoid continuing confrontation in the SecurityCouncil. Moscow's proposal called for the "immediate implementation"of Annan's plan and guidelines for a political transition approved at a meetingin Geneva last month and would have extended the observer mission for 90 days,but it made no mention of sanctions.
Instead, Churkin proposed that council members adopt "abrief depoliticized resolution" extending the mission of the unarmedobservers for a limited time to preserve its "useful potential."