Syria: Russia Rejects Western Blackmail

The false reporting on the Tremseh "massacre" was supposed to put pressure on Russia and China to agree to a Chapter 7 UN Security Council resolution. Chapter 7 allows the use of force and such a resolution could be used as an excuse for armed intervention.

Kofi Annan took that position when, after Tremseh, he urged the UNSC to threaten Syria with "consequences" for not retreating from cities and villages. Annan and Ban Ki Moon were dispatched to Russia and China to further press the issue.

But the Tremseh information operation fell apart when the UN observers confirmed the Syrian government version of the story. Writes the Wall Street Journal:

New evidence on last week's killings in a village in central Syria suggests the bloodshed followed a raid by government forces to arrest male rebels, rather than a deliberate massacre of around 200 civilians as some Syrian opposition leaders and their Western allies first reported.
...
The findings could ease the pressure on Russia and China to back tougher measures against Bashar al-Assad's government, underscoring how competing narratives and interpretations of events in Syria continue to divide world powers over how to end a conflict now recognized by most as a civil war.

The Foreign Minister of the Russian Federation Sergey Lavrov is scheduled to meet with Kofi Annan tomorrow. He just held a press conference in which he laid out the Russian and Chinese position. From my notes:

• Lavrov rejected demands of unilateral withdrawal of Syrian armed forces from cities. He insisted on simultaneous withdrawal by the army and the insurgents after local negotiations and under supervision of the UN observers.
• He accused the west of "blackmailing" by threatening to not renew the mandate of the UN observers unless Russia agrees to a Chapter 7 resolution.
• He asked how Russia could trust anyone with Chapter 7 when existing UNSC resolutions and the recent Geneva decisions are not followed by others as they continue to arm and support the insurgency.
• He expressed concern about the increasing sectarian dimension of the conflict and the fate of minorities like the Christians in Syria.
• He expressed concern about a radical "third force" in the Syrian conflict and emphasized that such AlQaeda forces are a common enemy of everyone involved in the crisis.
• He regretted that the Syrian National Council does not relent from its "radical demands", is not helpful in creating an inner-Syrian dialog and has not named a negotiator like the Syrian government has done.
• He emphasized that the solution of the crisis in Syria will be an example for other global crises and should be seen under that perspective.
• Inner-Syrian negotiation on a transition as agreed upon in Geneva is the way to go and Russia will not go with any UN resolution that does not confirm with the Geneva document.
• Russia will not permit any Chapter 7 resolution on Syria to pass the UNSC.

The attempt to use Tremseh to blackmail the Russians has obviously failed.

Will there be another trick the U.S. will try to get its will? Could the unconfirmed allegation by anonymous western officials about the movement of chemical arms within Syria be used to create another fake event that the Syrian government can then be accused of? What other malicious ideas will Hillary Clinton come up with?
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