Syria, January 28: Russian Ambassador to the UN Vitaly Churkin expressed “deep” disappointment with the draft, Russia Today reported.
“The proposed draft resolution cannot be used as the basis of solving the situation,” Churkin said.
Churkin accused the Arab League of trying to “impose” a solution to “undercut” efforts to find a political solution to the unrest in Syria.
The draft echoes the Arab League’s call for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to transfer power to his deputy.
Churkin added that the document “not only ignored our red lines but also added some new elements which we find unacceptable as a matter of principle.”
“The Arab League may have its ideas where political dialogue should go. Certainly they are free to express those ideas but the Security Council should not be a tool to impose specific solutions on countries including in this particular case Syria,” he said.
Russia and China vetoed a European-drafted resolution in October 2011 that condemned Syria and threatened it with sanctions over the unrest in the country.
Syria has been experiencing unrest since last March.
The West and the Syrian opposition accuse the government of killing protesters. Damascus, however, blames “outlaws, saboteurs and armed terrorist groups” for the unrest, insisting that it is being orchestrated from abroad.
—-Agencies