Russian diplomat: US diplomacy comes down to breaking promises

MOSCOW, October 4./TASS/. Washington has failed to comply with its commitments in Syria within the framework of the respective agreement, breaking off cooperation with Moscow on the Syrian peace settlement, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told Rossiya 1 television on Tuesday.

She said Washington failed to implement "two very important points: separating terrorists from certain moderate opposition... and ensuring the pullout of forces on Castello Road. The US has failed to do this, this is a fact of life," Zakharova said.

Washington’s non-compliance with commitments on the Syrian peace settlement and its breaking off of bilateral contacts with Russia on Syria demonstrated inconsistency of Washington’s diplomacy.

"Diplomacy is elaboration, accomplishment and implementation of agreements. Washington took upon itself work with the opposition, with these gunmen, and has failed to do this job. This is what their diplomacy comes down to," the spokeswoman said.

Earlier, the US Department of State official spokesperson Elizabeth Trudeau said Washington had informed Moscow on the suspension of bilateral communication channels that had been established to maintain truce in Syria

Ambassador Churkin believes, in the meantime, there is no alternative to contacts between Russia and the US on Syria.

UN and veto right 

Speculation and recommendations about possible restrictions on the veto right of the United Nations Security Council permanent members go beyond the competences of the United Nations secretariat, Maria Zakharova said. 

She drew attention to the words of United Nations secretariat spokesman about the necessity to limit veto right of the permanent members of the Security Council over the humanitarian situation in Syria:

"It goes beyond all existing and possible theoretical and philosophical frames of the United Nations secretariat’s activities. It is beyond the competences of the United Nations secretariat to issue such ‘helpful hints’ to the United Nations Security Council permanent members and to any members of the United Nations in general."

"The veto right is not a privilege, it is not about using one’s competences in one’s own interests, it is a matter of the balance of forces," Zakharova stressed. "This unique instrument was invented when the United Nations was established and over the 70 years of its existence it has proved its worth as a tool meant to maintain strategic balance in the world."

As an example especially topical in the context of the current situation in Syria, she cited developments that had preceded the United States’ aggression in Iraq. "Just imagine there had not been the right to veto or some wisehead had recommended to cancel it over the humanitarian situation in Iraq more than ten years ago when the United States and its coalition were only planning their intervention to Iraq and it had been ultimately done and the United Nations Security Council had passed a relevant resolution. Then now the responsibility for the collapse not only in Iraq, not only for the hundreds of thousands of killed civilians in that country, but the collapse in the entire region would have rested not on the United States and its affiliate states but on the United Nations Security Council. And not on the secretariat employee who initiates such ideas, for sure," the spokeswoman underscored.