UN Security Council still deadlocked

UNITED NATIONS: The UN Security Council this week returns to the battle over Syria’s deadly crackdown on protests - but opponents of UN action, led by Russia, keep trying to switch the debate to Libya.

Western nations are frustrated with demands by Russia and others for an inquiry into the Nato airstrikes in Libya which they use as a reason to oppose UN action in Syria.

US ambassador to the UN Susan Rice calls it a “bogus” move, hiding other motives.

Diplomats predicted that Russia and its allies would again raise Libya when top UN officials tomorrow brief the 15-member Security Council on latest events in Syria and Arab League efforts to end bloodshed.

Ten months into President Bashar al-assad’s assault on opponents, the council has still not passed a resolution on the violence.

Russia and China vetoed one European text in October, calling it a first step toward “regime change”.

Rice and her Russian counterpart Vitaly Churkin are locked in a tense battle over Syria and whether Nato attacks in Libya overstepped UN resolutions 1970 and 1973 passed in February and March last year.

Rice, a member of President Barack Obama’s Cabinet, has sternly rejected the accusations against Nato.

The US envoy said she made the case “very precisely, very explicity and in detail”. — AFP