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US, allies to be unable to dislodge Assad, says ambassador

"There should be no illusions in this respect," Vasily Nebenzya said
The Russian Ambassador to the UN Vasily Nebenzya AP Photo/Julie Jacobson
The Russian Ambassador to the UN Vasily Nebenzya
© AP Photo/Julie Jacobson

UNITED NATIONS, April 18. /TASS/. Washington, London and Paris will not be able to dislodge the Syrian President, Bashar al-Assad, the Russian Ambassador to the UN, Vasily Nebenzya said on Tuesday at a meeting of the UN Security Council.

"We’re astonished by the hypocritical behavior on the part of the US, the UK and France in recent days," he said. "Hardly a day had passed after the missile strikes [at Syria in retaliation for an alleged chemical attack in Douma - TASS] that their organizers began to come up with strange political initiatives."

"It’s noteworthy that all the elements of their proposals are found in the existing resolutions," Nebenzya said. "By their act of aggression, the trio and those who supported it have expressed solidarity with a party to the conflict."

"An aggressor doesn’t have the moral right to draft international legal acts spearheaded at the victim of its aggression," he said. "Before the missile strikes we saw the Syrian government’s readiness for holding talks in Geneva but now all the efforts have been rebounded."

"It’s really difficult to imagine that the Syrian authorities will feel enthusiastic about discussions of political settlement in their country in line with the precepts of the Western trio after everything that’s happened," Nebenzya said.

As he mentioned the US, UK and French intentions, he said: "If the task is to make the Syrian president sit down to the table of negotiations under the shower of bombs, pass the fact off as a victory over him, since brute force is allegedly the only thing he understands, dislodge him upon completion of the negotiations and put him on trial as a ‘war criminal’ - something the US, the UK and France are threatening with - then this task is not accomplishable."

"There should be no illusions in this respect," he said.

According to the information of the Russian Defense Ministry, the warplanes and ships of the US, the UK and France delivered missile strikes at various sites in Syria from 03:42 through 05:10 Syrian time on April 14. Of the 103 missiles they launched, the Syrian air defense forces managed to bring down 71 missiles.