UNITED NATIONS ORGANIZATION, July 12 (Itar-Tass) - Russia and China considered unreasonable Britain’s proposal to adopt a U.N. Security Council resolution based on the G-8 final declaration on Syria to get access to U.N. chemical weapons inspectors to the country, Russian permanent representative to the U.N. Vitaly Churkin told journalists.
Such approach runs counter the document itself, Churkin said.
“We stated that firstly, the G-8 declaration was an important document. But there is no need to turn it into the resolution. Secondly, the text of the G-8 declaration proves that it is necessary to conduct an investigation. Then its results should be submitted to the U.N. Security Council. As you know who our British friends are - they even go the wrong way. Thus, they put the horse before the cart,” the Russian diplomat said.
Churkin noted that while holding consultations with the Western countries Chinese permanent representative Li Baodong and he had pointed to the progress, which had been achieved in the course of the contacts with the Syrian government and the U.N. Secretariat to conduct the investigation into the use of chemical weapons. This progress “should be materialized”, he added.
Speaking about mass media information on the last week’s consultations on Britain’s resolution between the five members of the U.N. Security Council, Churkin said the Western countries insisted discussions be held behind-the-scenes. However, the West “gathered mass media information” on the draft resolution. “Based on the fact that we watched such facts in the past, we decided that their purpose was to make much more noise instead to help conduct the investigation,” the Russian permanent representative to the U.N. said.
He denied the U.S. claims that Russia blocked the attempts to get access to Syria in order to investigate all facts on the use of chemical weapons. Churkin said the Syrian government and the U.N. Secretariat should come to an agreement to solve this problem.
Commenting on the disagreements between Russia and the United States related to the use of chemical weapons, the Russian permanent representative said they had no impact on preparing the international conference (Geneva-2) on Syria.