UNITED NATIONS -- Russia on Thursday blocked a U.S.-sponsored resolution at the Security Council to extend the life of a panel investigating who is using chemical weapons in the Syria conflict.
The veto means the panel, which has found that both the Syrian government and Islamic State militants have used chemical poisons in the war, will be dissolved as of today.
U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley denounced the Russian veto, saying "it strikes a deep blow." Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia of Russia ridiculed the American indignation, accusing the United States and its partners of seeking to preserve a panel with "extremely systemic flaws."
"There was nothing balanced in the U.S. resolution," Nebenzia said.
It was the 10th time Russia had used its veto power as a permanent member of the Security Council to protect the Syrian government, its principal ally in the Middle East.
The veto threw into doubt whether users of chemical weapons in Syria will ever be held to account.
The use of chemical weapons is a war crime.
Eleven of the 15 members of the Security Council voted in favor of the U.S. resolution, with Russia and Bolivia opposed and China and Egypt abstaining.
Hours before Nebenzia cast his no vote, Russia's foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, had signaled at a news conference in Moscow that his country intended to block the resolution.
Russia had been angered by the panel's Oct. 27 report, which found that the Syrian military had been responsible for a deadly sarin attack on the village of Khan Sheikhoun in northern Syria on April 4.
Panel investigators relied on interviews, photos, videos and analysis of soil samples supplied by the Syrian government from Khan Sheikhoun. But they did not go to the attack site.
The Russians had expressed support for renewing the panel's mandate but demanded changes in its investigation methods.
Calling the report deeply flawed and tainted by Western pressure to vilify the Syrian government, the Russians rejected the findings and suggested that Syrian insurgents or Islamic militants might have staged the attack.
A Section on 11/17/2017