The 5th Chinese Veto and the 6th Russian veto on Syria

China, Russia and Venezuela have strongly reacted to New Zealand’s proposal on Syria, which was backed by Spain and Egypt [1].

This proposal which provided for an immediate cease-fire was blocked on two issues that have monopolized debates in the Council for [the past] five years:
– the fact that, in violation of a number of Council resolutions, some States (Saudi Arabia, the United States, France, Qatar, the United Kingdom and Turkey) are supporting the jihadists.
– the withdrawal of the jihadists from East Aleppo.

The proposal had been tabled by New Zealand when its Prime Minister resigned. It seems that in actual fact it was drafted and imposed by the United Kingdom whose Queen is also the sovereign of New Zealand. This situation requires recalling the resignation of the Australian Prime Minister Gough Whitlam, in 1975. He had been opposed to the US National Security Agency base at Pine Gap and had planned to close it. However Queen Elizabeth removed him from office in order to preserve the « Five Eyes» agreement.

The Russian representative, Vitaly Churkin, observed that each time an agreement on the point was reached between the US Secretary of State and his Russian homologue, a manoeuvre was attempted at New York to make it fail; this remark was directed directly at the UN number 2, Jeffrey Feltman (the former US Under Secretary of State).

The United Kingdom representative, Matthew Rycroft, accused China of supporting Russia through solidarity with President Bachar el-Assad, « due to his belief in a despot, who has turned against his people ». This outraged his Chinese counterpart, Liu Jieyi. The latter denounced the United Kingdom for « systematic poisoning » the debates and wishing to sabotage the Kerry-Lavrov Agreements.

This is the fifth time China has vetoed the Syrian issue and for Russia it is the sixth time. Venezuela also voted against it. For the first time in the Council, Russia and China have, using coded language, accused the United Kingdom and the UN Number 2, Jeffrey Feltman, of sabotaging the work of the US State Department [2] for a long time.