MOSCOW – Russia and China vetoed on Friday a UN Security Council resolutionfor a cease-fire in northwest Syria’s Idlib province.
Speaking at a news conference in Moscow, Russian Foreign MinistrySpokeswoman Maria Zakharova described the document as “an attempt to takethe heat off the terrorists”.
Zakharova said the resolution, presented to the UN Security Council onThursday, was unrelated with the concern about the safety of civilians inthe governorate, which she added severely suffers from the presence ofmilitants.
Further, the project “completely ignored the efforts made by the ‘Troika’of Astana guarantors [Russia, Iran, Turkey] to promote a politicalsettlement in Syria,” she said.
The proposal was put forth by Kuwait, Germany, and Belgium, and demanded anend to all hostilities in Syria’s last opposition-held enclave withoutexception, providing for repressive measures against those who violated theceasefire.
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“The authors of the project were not stopped even by the fact that a numberof such organizations [in Idlib] are recognized as terrorists by thedecision of the UN Security Council, prescribing to wage an irreconcilablestruggle with them”, she added.
Syria has been locked in a vicious civil war since early 2011, when theBashar al-Assad regime cracked down on pro-democracy protests withunexpected ferocity.
Since then, hundreds of thousands of people have been killed and more than10 million others displaced, according to UN officials. – Anadolu Agency
