Another Russia veto is expected Wednesday afternoon at the UN Security Council on a resolution calling on Syria to cooperate with an investigation into last week’s chemical weapons attack in the civil war-plagued country.
Western ambassadors blasted Russia earlier Wednesday for continuing to support Syrian President Bashar al-Assad after his alleged use of sarin on a rebel-held area.
UK Ambassador Matthew Rycroft accused Assad by name at a planned morning session on Syria.
“We’ve met over the horror, hoping Assad has reached his depths, and yet every time, he’s plunged to new lows,” he said. The Syrian people “have suffered six years of ever-escalating barbarity, over six years of failed ceasefires, and over the years, Russia has held us ransom for the Assad regime.”
However, the Syrian envoy to the UN Bashar Ja’afari dismissed as “lies” and “accusations” the notion that his country used “a chemical weapon we do not even possess.”
Vladimir Safronkov, deputy Russian ambassador, pointed at Rycroft later, saying with emotion: “Look at me when I’m speaking. Don’t look away. Why are you looking away?”
Safronkov charged that the UK and US support terrorist groups seeking to remove the Assad regime.
However, the US ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, did not let up on the criticism of Moscow.
“To my colleagues from Russia, you are isolating yourselves from the international community every time one of Assad’s planes drop another barrel bomb on civilians and every time Assad tries to starve another community to death,” she said.
As her boss Rex Tillerson, the US secretary of state, was meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin in Russia, Haley told the council, “It is long past time for Russia to stop covering for Assad. It is long past time for Russia to push seriously for peace and not continue to be part of the problem”
Ja’afari, the Syrian representative, repeated many arguments in his country’s defense that he has stated over the six years of civil war. He said the recent chemical weapons attack was really the act of terrorists and rebels. He also blamed the US for “deciding to repeat the same bloody, theatrical play that it had staged 14 years ago in this council against Iraq. A play entitled “the lie of the Iraqi WMDs.”
After the session, the Syrian ambassador was asked by CNN to comment on President Donald Trump’s remarks in an interview that Assad was “an animal.”
“It’s really pitiful to hear such irresponsible and provocative statements from the most important leader in the Western world,” Ja’afari said. “I feel ashamed, I feel ashamed.”