The US ambassador to the UN said Russia’s vetoes against holding Syria’s government accountable are “extremely disruptive” to the UN Security Council’s ability to restore peace in the conflict, and have emboldened Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to do “almost whatever he wants.”
In an interview on Friday, US Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power said the war continues because the council is unable to get Russia to pressure al-Assad.
“The things we think are indispensable, Russia is not prepared to do,” she said.
Power said the council now must “push and push and push” on the next goal: Finding a way to assign responsibility for continuing reports of the use of chemical weapons against Syrian civilians.
Neither the UN nor the global chemical weapons watchdog, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, has a mandate to assign blame in the use of chemical weapons in Syria.
Syria’s conflict has entered its fifth year, with more than 200,000 killed, and the Security Council is often accused of failing Syrians.
Power spoke after visiting an exhibition of images smuggled out by a former crime scene photographer for the Syrian government who now lives in exile and used the pseudonym “Caesar.”
The images of the corpses of detainees from Syrian government prisons, some with gouged-out eyes or signs of torture or starvation, were shown to the Security Council last year and helped inspire a council effort to refer Syria’s situation to the International Criminal Court (ICC).
“If the Caesar photos do not make you want to do an ICC referral, I do not know what does,” Power said.
However, Russia vetoed the ICC referral effort, with China.
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