Russia vetoed a draft resolution at the United Nations Security Council on Wednesday that would have condemned last week’s alleged chemical attack in Syria and demanded that the Syrian regime cooperate with international investigators.

The resolution was drafted and proposed by the United States, United Kingdom, and France, who responded angrily to Russia’s decision to veto it. This was the eighth time that Russia has vetoed Security Council resolutions that criticized the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. China, Ethiopia, and Kazakhstan abstained and Bolivia joined Russia and voted against the resolution.

The proposed resolution supported an investigation into the Khan Sheikhoun attack on April 4th by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. The resolution required the Syrian government to cooperate fully with the investigation, providing records and data including flight logs from April 4th and access to air bases for inspection to gather evidence.

U.S. Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley addressed her comments to the Russian ambassador and said, “You are isolating yourselves from the international community every time one of Assad’s planes drop another barrel bomb on civilians and every time Assad tries to starve another community to death.”

Matthew Rycroft, the UK ambassador the UN, said: “Chemical weapons scientists at Porton Down, in the United Kingdom, have analysed samples obtained from Khan Sheikhoun, and these have tested positive for the nerve agent sarin, or a sarin-like substance.” He also said that there can be no place for Assad in Syria’s future. After the Russian veto, UK Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said Russia was “on the wrong side of the argument.”

Russian Deputy Ambassador Vladimir Safronkov told the Security Council that the resolution was “doomed” from the beginning, saying that “The outcome was pre-determined because we have consistently expressed our categorical disagreement with the content of the document. Russia has called for an independent international investigation, and questioned how Western powers could have assigned responsibility for what happened so quickly.”

In a press conference on Wednesday President Trump responded to the to the Security Council vote by stating that U.S.-Russia relations were at a low point. He called President Assad a butcher and declared that it was now time to end the Syrian civil war.

(via BICOM)

[Photo: BICOM ]