Russia defends Syria veto as best hope for peace

Charles Clover in Moscow, Anna Fifield in Washington and Roula Khalaf in London

Financial Times

October 6, 2011 ET

Russia has defend­ed its deci­sion to veto a UN res­olution on Syr­ia, in­sis­t­ing that its suggested amend­ments had been ignored, as it faced a torrent of out­rage from the US, Eu­rope and the Syr­ian oppo­sition.
The US de­scribed the Russian and Ch­inese veto dur­ing Tuesday’s UN vote as a slap in the face for the Syr­ian people and France’s Alain Juppé, the for­eign min­is­ter, la­mented the move as a “sad day” for Syr­ians and for the UN Secu­rity Council.
Burhan Ghalioun, a leading member of the newly formed Syr­ian National Council, an oppo­sition front, echoed the fears of many                 

activists in the upris­ing of more than six months when he said the Russian and Ch­inese veto would encour­age the militari­sa­tion of the rev­olution.

“Support­ing Bashar al- As­sad in his militarist and fascist project will not encour­age the Syr­ian people to stick to a peaceful rev­olution,” he said. “This Russian pol­icy that blocks any at­tempt to con­demn vio­lence flies in the face of ev­ery­thing they have said.”
But Russian of­ficials, who have tak­en the lead in rejecting international pressure on Mr As­sad, bring­ing the Ch­inese along with them, said they worried that sanctions would be the first step in a slip­pery slope to­wards military inter­vention, as was the case in Libya.
“We have warned more than once that we will strictly oppose any at­tempt to turn the ‘Libyan       

scenar­io’ into some sort of norm,” said Russia’s for­eign min­istry, explain­ing the deci­sion to use the veto.

It said Russia had sought to incorporate language call­ing for the Syr­ian oppo­sition to dissociate them­selves from extrem­ists and for the res­olution to state explicitly that military inter­vention was inadmissible. The in­volve­ment of “extrem­ists” in the re­volt is a main al­legation made by Dam­ascus.
“We are not lawyers for regime of Bashar al-As­sad,” said the for­eign min­istry, adding Russia “def­i­nitely consid­ers the con­tin­u­ing vio­lence un­accept­able, and con­demns the sup­pres­sion of peaceful demonstrations”.
“At the same time, we cannot ignore the fact that the rad­ical oppo­sition are increas­ingly prof­iting from the mood of protest among the         

popu­lation of Syr­ia and no longer hide their extrem­ist ideas, resorting to the tactics of out­right terror.”

France, togeth­er with the UK, Germany and Portu­gal, and with US backing, diluted a pre­vi­ous draft res­olution that had been stagnating for months, in the hope of persuading Russia and China at least to abstain.
The lat­est ver­sion decried the “grave and system­at­ic” human rights vio­lations in Syr­ia and de­manded an im­me­diate end to the vio­lence, and for those responsible to be held to account. It did not include the explicit threat of sanctions but said the Secu­rity Council would “consid­er its options”, which could include unspec­i­fied “measures” af­ter 30 days.
The res­olution would have been the first Secu­rity Council action against the As­sad regime