The five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council met on Tuesday to negotiate a draft resolution that would hold Syria to its pledge of identifying all chemical weapons under government control for destruction, but diplomats said major differences over a draft quickly emerged.
The diplomats, who declined to be identified, said Russia, Syria’s most important ally, was resisting components of the draft, composed by the three Western permanent members — Britain, France and the United States — that discuss the threat of force to ensure Syrian compliance, whether to condemn the Syrian government for chemical weapons use, and whether suspected users should be referred to the International Criminal Court for war crimes prosecutions.