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Middle East and North Africa

Diplomat: western countries fail to coordinate draft statement on situation in Syria

Russia’s delegation : the draft statement is unbalanced. Amendments should be made in the draft statement. It should mention the opposition’s crimes

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UNITED NATIONS ORGANIZATION, January 09. /ITAR-TASS/. Members of the U.N. Security Council failed to coordinate a draft statement on the situation in Syria for the second time this month, a diplomatic source told Itar-Tass.

Britain put forth an initiative to adopt the draft statement, which calls for condemning the actions by the Syrian authorities.

Commenting on the document, Russia’s delegation said: “The draft statement is unbalanced. Amendments should be made in the draft statement. It should mention the opposition’s crimes.”

“However, the text’s authors disagreed and the draft statement was withdrawn,” the diplomat said.

On December 18, the United States called for adopting the similar draft statement. It was based on mass media reports and wording by anonymous “human rights activists” on the use of weapons, including flame bombs and Scud missiles, in Aleppo by the Syrian authorities.

Later, the Russian Foreign Ministry reported that the U.S. had been proposed “several constructive amendments to the text of the document in order to make it more balanced”.

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