MOSCOW, February 9 (Itar-Tass) — The Duma Council will consider a statement on the situation in Syria, in which MPs warn against repeating the “Libyan scenario” and external armed interference for removing the Bashar al-Assad regime.
The document was drafted by the State Duma Foreign Affairs Committee. Its Chairman Alexei Pushkov told Itar-Tass that a special statement was necessitated by the fact that “the position assumed by Russia [which vetoed the draft resolution on Syria in the U.N. Security Council] was subjected to very strong and sometimes hysterical criticism by representatives of certain countries” and “the State Duma Foreign Affairs Committee has drafted a statement and intends to ask the Duma Council to put it on the agenda of the plenary session on Friday, February 10”.
The draft voices serious concern about the deteriorating situation around Syria amidst growing violence inside the country. “The Russian and Chinese delegations voted against the draft resolution on Syria submitted by Morocco and the delegations of some Western and Arab countries at a meeting of the U.N. Security Council on February 4 because it did not solve the main task of stopping the Syrian conflict and establishing peace in Syria,” the document says.
MPs say that the position of the Russian delegation at the U.N. is fully in line with the position of the Russian leadership, which insists that the conflict should be resolved through productive dialogue in Syria on the basis of mutual rejection of violence by the parties and offers full support to this approach.
The Duma urges the U.N. Security Council not to take sides in this conflict. “An unbalanced approach, which was basically contained in the latest draft resolution, would undermine chances for equal and constructive dialogue,” the draft statement says.
MPs believe that some Western and Arab countries are setting totally different tasks to the U.N. “These scenarios basically anticipate the outcome of the political process in Syria, sets forth ultimatums to one side only, and portray the change of the political system in the country as an unconditional prerequisite for the resolution of Syrian problems”. The Duma strongly condemns the use of force against other countries. It believes that “those U.N. Security Council member states that shift responsibility for the deterioration of the Syrian conflict to Russia and China in connection with their refusal to support an unbalanced daft resolution on the situation in Syria intentionally mislead the international community about their own motives and intentions as was in Libya”.