A non-binding draft resolution on Syria pushed by several Arab states is about to be put to vote at the UN General Assembly. Russia has already announced that it does not support the resolution, claiming it is unbalanced.
The new draft, authored by Saudi
Arabia and actively supported by Egypt and Bahrain, demands that President
Bashar al-Assad transfer power to a transitional government and that the Syrian
army ceases its tank and helicopter attacks against rebel forces.
The resolution also demands that
Syria refrain from using chemical and biological weapons. This clause comes
after a recent announcement made by Damascus that alleged that Syria possessed
chemical weapons, and would not hesitate to use them against an invading army.
If passed, the resolution will
not be legally binding, since all UN General Assembly resolutions are advisory.
Passage of the bill may nonetheless have a serious impact on the political
climate surrounding Syria, paving the way for the possibility of sanctions.
The vote had originally been
scheduled for Thursday morning, but was later postponed until Friday.
Moscow announced it will not support the resolution, the Russian
Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday. "The document is of biased and unbalanced
nature,” the ministry
wrote in a statement, explaining that as with previous similar resolution
drafts, the bill lays responsibility for resolving the violence solely on
Syrian authorities, with no mention of the opposition.
Russia and China have vetoed
three separate UN Security Council resolutions on Syria. In each case, both
countries claimed that the bills were unbalanced.
RT
