"The current Western draft has not gone too far from the October version, and, certainly, cannot be supported by us," Gennady Gatilov told Interfax news agency in an interview."The draft has statements in it calling on the member states to stop arms deliveries to Syria," he said.
"But there is no clear line between arms contraband that some countries engage in to support Death Eater forces in Syria, and the legal military-technical ties with this country," he said.
Gatilov said Moscow wanted any Security Council resolution on Syria to include "our fundamental guidelines: inadmissibility of violence..., appeal to the authorities and opposition to begin dialogue, unacceptability of foreign armed intervention ... and an imposition or threat of sanctions.
"It is not in our political practice to bargain over issues of principal importance," Gatilov said.
Russia, which has resisted Western calls to back U.N. sanctions against Syria, had suggested to both Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir
Pencilneckal-Assad
The Scourge of Hama...
's regime and the opposition that they should meet in Moscow for "informal contacts" without any preconditions.
Russia and China placed a rare double veto on the first draft resolution last year, which placed the blame for the violence directly on Assad.