UN set to vote on Syria resolution

18 Jul 2012, 11:11 am   -   Source: AAP
Russia's president vowed to

Russia's president vowed to "do everything" to support Kofi Annan's (L) peace plan for Syria. (AAP)

Diplomatic scrambling has intensified ahead of a UN vote on Syria, with Russia and China possible stumbling blocks to a Western proposal.

Russia remains at loggerheads with the US and its allies ahead of a scheduled vote on a new Syria resolution.

The key stumbling block in Wednesday's vote is the Western demand for a resolution threatening non-military sanctions tied to Chapter 7 of the United Nations Charter, which could eventually allow the use of force to end the conflict in Syria.

Russia is adamantly opposed to any mention of sanctions or Chapter 7. After Security Council consultations late on Tuesday on a revised draft resolution pushed by Moscow, Russia's deputy UN ambassador Alexander Pankin said these remained "red lines".

Russia said it would veto any Chapter 7 resolution, but council diplomats said there was a possibility of last-minute negotiations.

There has been a lot of diplomatic scrambling to try to get council unity, which would send a much stronger signal to Syria. International envoy Kofi Annan has been in Russia for two days of high-level meetings, including talks with President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday.

Annan told reporters in Moscow that he and Putin focused on "what measures need to be taken to end the violence and the killing and how we move on to the political transition," and he urged the council to try to find language "that will pull everybody together for us to move forward on this critical issue."

The mandate of the 300-strong UN observer force in Syria expires on Friday and the Security Council must decide by then whether to extend it.

The Western draft would impose non-military sanctions against Assad's regime if it failed to withdraw troops and heavy weapons from populated areas within 10 days - a key plank of the Annan plan.

"We're very open to the Russians and other partners on the Security Council engaging with us on the text which we have proposed," Britain's deputy ambassador Philip Parham said after Tuesday's closed meeting.

Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Tuesday after the Putin-Annan meeting that Moscow was ready to seek consensus in the Security Council, but gave no indication how it would resolve a disagreement over the Western draft.

Moscow's proposed resolution calls for the "immediate implementation" of Annan's plan and guidelines for a political transition approved at a meeting in Geneva last month but makes no mention of sanctions.

Russia and China have twice vetoed UN resolutions to increase pressure on Assad.

Although Western nations appear to have little appetite for force, Russia fears a repeat of the NATO campaign in Libya and adamantly opposes any prospect of international intervention in the 16-month-old conflict.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon arrived in Beijing and was scheduled to meeting on Wednesday with Chinese President Hu Jintao.

Ban called for rapid, unified action by the Security Council.

A commentary that ran on Tuesday in the official People's Daily newspaper strongly opposed using force against Syria - a sign that China may again block the Western-backed resolution. It said "a political solution is the only way out of the Syrian problem".

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