The Security Council's Back

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.