MOSCOW: Russia on Tuesday urged the United Nations to send a special envoy to Syria to help coordinate security issues and the delivery of humanitarian assistance. RussiaÂ’s Foreign Ministry said on Twitter Tuesday that itÂ’s proposing that the UN Security Council ask the UN Secretary General to send the envoy.| That should keep Pencilneck in power for another month... |
Russia and China have vetoed two Security Council resolutions backing Arab League plans aimed at ending the conflict and condemning President Bashar AssadÂ’s crackdown on protests that killed 5,400 in 2011 alone, according to the UN Hundreds more have been killed since, activist groups say.
Syria is RussiaÂ’s last remaining ally in the Middle East. Moscow has maintained close ties with Damascus since the Cold War, when Syria was led by the current leaderÂ’s father, Hafez Assad.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said Tuesday that Moscow will not attend the planned “friends of Syria” meeting at the end of this week, because its organizers had failed to invite representatives of the Syrian government.
| Of course not: the Syrian government is not a friend of Syria. |
“It looks like an attempt to forge some kind of international coalition like it was with the setting-up of a ‘contact group’ for Libya,” Lukashevich said.
Russia has said it will block any UN resolution that could pave the way for a replay of what happened in Libya. In that case, Russia abstained from a vote, which cleared the way for months of NATO air force attacks that helped Libyans end Muammar QaddafiÂ’s regime.