Attack against sovereign state violates int'l law, says Russian envoy

UNITED NATIONS, April 13 (Xinhua) -- A Russian envoy said Friday that attack against a sovereign state would constitute a violation of international law and run counter to the United Nations Charter and "could not be allowed to happen."

"There must be accountability for such a planned intervention," he said, noting that recent experiences in Iraq and Syria were still fresh in the minds of those across the region, Russian ambassador to the UN, Vassily Nebenzia, said at a Security Council meeting on Syria.

Agreeing with Secretary-General Antonio Guterres that the Middle East is currently a wounded region, he said its largest injury is in Syria where the situation is "fraught with global implications."

The United States, on April 11, threatened to strike Syria, where Russia's troops were also deployed "for counter-terrorism efforts," he said.

"Any state daring to encroach on the principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity was unworthy of the status of a permanent member of the Council, however, one such member continued to insist on plunging the Middle East into one conflict after another," he said.

Syrian armed forces had already received instructions on how to respond to such an attack, he said, adding that there was no evidence backing up the justification being invoked by Western states, namely, the allegation of chemical weapons use in the town of Douma.

The Syrian government had strongly rejected those allegations, calling on the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) to promptly investigate.

Russia's proposed resolution through which the Security Council would support that fact-finding mission had been irresponsibly blocked by the United States, Britain and France, who only sought "to oust the Syrian Government and contain the Russian Federation," said the Russian envoy.

He called on the United States and its allies to immediately reconsider their plan "to bring the world to such a dangerous threshold and instead to support peaceful political negotiations towards ending the Syrian conflict." Enditem