MOSCOW: International diplomatic pressure increased on Moscow on Friday to end the joint Russian-Syrian siege of the city of Aleppo, but Moscow’s U.N. ambassador says he will most likely veto a U.N. Security Council resolution that would ground Russian warplanes.
Russia’s parliament meanwhile ratified a treaty with Syria that allows its troops to stay indefinitely in the country, a show of support for embattled Syrian President Bashar Assad.
The siege by Syrian forces backed by Russian warplanes has inflicted immense suffering on civilians in the city’s rebel-held eastern districts. A cease-fire brokered by the United States and Russia collapsed last month and Washington-Moscow ties have deteriorated sharply; Russian lawmakers said ratifying the treaty with Syria on Friday was a necessary step to stand up to the U.S.
The United States and Russia support opposite sides in the more than 5-year-old war — Moscow has been a staunch Assad ally and Washington backs Syrian rebels trying to oust him.
As Aleppo’s misery dragged on, Russia’s United Nations ambassador Vitaly Churkin rejected a French-proposed U.N. Security Council resolution that would call for grounding all aircraft, including Russia’s, over Aleppo.
The resolution, also calling for an Aleppo cease-fire, is to be considered Saturday but Churkin said, “I cannot possibly see how we can let this resolution to pass.”
In a last-minute move Friday, Russia introduced its own draft resolution urging “immediate, safe and unhindered humanitarian access throughout Syria,” similar language to the French text.
But Russia’s draft adds two new elements: It stresses “the urgent need to achieve and verify separating moderate forces from ‘Jabhat Al-Nusra’ as a key priority,” a reference to the al-Qaida linked militant group. It also welcomes U.N. envoy Staffan de Mistura’s proposal for an al-Qaida-linked militant faction to leave Aleppo in exchange for a halt to Russian and Syrian government bombardment and asks Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to present a plan to the council to implement it.
The Security Council will vote Saturday first on the French draft and then on the Russia draft — and what is likely to happen is a Russian veto of the French draft and a veto of the Russian draft by France and its Western allies.
Russia’s air campaign in Syria, launched a year ago, has reversed the tide of war and helped Assad’s forces regain some key ground. Moscow says the goal of its military operation is to assist the Syrian army in the fight against terrorism. It rejects accusations of targeting civilians.
Lawmakers in the Kremlin-controlled State Duma voted unanimously to approve the deal, which allows Russia to keep its forces at the Hemeimeem air base in Syria’s coastal province of Latakia, Assad’s Alawite heartland, for as long as it wants. The deal was signed in August 2015 in Damascus, a month before the Russian air campaign began.