The US, France and the UK expect that the UN Security Council will approve a tough resolution demanding that Syria cooperate with the investigation into the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.
Ahead of yesterday's vote, foreign ministers from the three countries dined with their counterparts from Russia and China, who oppose the resolution's threat of sanctions if Syria refuses to cooperate with probe.
The dinner on Sunday night at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, hosted by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, provided a last chance for the five permanent veto-wielding council members to discuss the resolution.
The US, France and the UK co-sponsored the resolution to follow up last week's report by a UN investigating commission which implicated top Syrian and Lebanese security officials in the Feb. 14 bombing in Beirut that killed Hariri and 20 others and accused Syria of not cooperating fully with the probe.
US Ambassador John Bolton said on Friday the resolution has the nine "yes" votes required for approval, and will likely have more by the time of the vote.
"I don't foresee a veto," he said, a view echoed by his French and British co-sponsors.
But council diplomats said that if Washington, Paris and London want to get unanimous support from all 15 council nations -- which would send a more powerful message to Syria -- they will have to drop the sanctions threat.
Otherwise, the resolution will likely be adopted with 12 "yes" votes and three abstentions -- by Russia, China and Algeria, a non-permanent council member and its only Arab representative, the diplomats said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk ahead of the vote.
There was no immediate word from the five ministers on their two-hour dinner meeting attended by Rice, Russia's Sergey Lavrov, China's Li Zhaoxing (李肇星), the British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw and France's Philippe Douste-Blazy.
Lavrov and Li, who met alone for about 45 minutes before the dinner, refused to say how they would vote yesterday.
"Just wait and see," Li said.
The latest draft would require Syria to detain anyone the UN investigators consider a suspect and let investigators determine the location and conditions under which the individual would be questioned. It would freeze assets and impose a travel ban on anyone identified as a suspect by the commission.
If Syria does not fully cooperate with the investigation, the draft says the council intends to consider "further measures," including sanctions, "to ensure compliance by Syria."
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
JOINT EFFORTS: The three countries have been strengthening an alliance and pressing efforts to bolster deterrence against Beijing’s assertiveness in the South China Sea The US, Japan and the Philippines on Friday staged joint naval drills to boost crisis readiness off a disputed South China Sea shoal as a Chinese military ship kept watch from a distance. The Chinese frigate attempted to get closer to the waters, where the warships and aircraft from the three allied countries were undertaking maneuvers off the Scarborough Shoal — also known as Huangyan Island (黃岩島) and claimed by Taiwan and China — in an unsettling moment but it was warned by a Philippine frigate by radio and kept away. “There was a time when they attempted to maneuver
RSS