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New US draft resolution on Syria slightly edited version of old one - FM

Lavrov stressed that “not everything depends on Russia”
Photo EPA/ITAR-TASS
Photo EPA/ITAR-TASS

MOSCOW, March 5 (Itar-Tass) —— A new U.S. draft resolution on Syria is a slightly edited version of the previous vetoed one, Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov said.

“The new U.N. Security Council draft resolution on Syria proposed by the U.S. is a slightly renovated version of the previous vetoed document and needs considerable balancing,” Gatilov wrote in his Twitter account on Monday, March 5.

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov stressed that “Russia is still ready to adopt coordinated decisions of the international community on Syria on the basis of the Russian draft resolution of U.N. Security Council”.

“Many events are happening in Syria now, and information is not very encouraging,” he added.

Lavrov stressed that “not everything depends on Russia”.

“There is no need to expect each other to take some action. It is necessary to sit down together and decide which steps to take so that the Syrian stop shooting each other,” the minister said.

Lavrov recalled that “this is what the Russian resolution sought to achieve. It was drafted on the basis of the LAS November initiative that is still on the negotiating table at the U.N. Security Council”.

According to the minister, Russia “hopes very much that it will not be forgotten”, “at least we remind all of our partners in the U.N. Security Council of that”.

“There is nothing impossible if negotiations are started. An agreement can be achieved on anything that is now rejected by the opposition. By so doing they assume responsibility for casualties among civilians,” he said earlier.

He stressed that Russia remains open to work on Syria in the United Nations with all interested parties.

When asked why Russia had vetoed the previous U.N. Security Council resolution on Syria, Lavrov said that it “demanded that the regime capitulate and transfer the power to armed people”.

He repeated his position announced earlier that peacekeepers can be deployed in Syria only with the consent of all parties.

“One thing is clear: any decision to deploy an international presence should be adopted with the consent of the parties to the conflict. This is the underlying principle that cannot be ignored,” he said.

The resolution adopted on February 12 after a meeting of the League of Arab States’ foreign ministers called for sending joint peacekeeping troops of the United Nations and Arab states to Syria in order to stop the conflict that has been going on for 11 months. However Damascus rejected the resolution.