NEW YORK (AA): The U.K. will immediately draft a Security Council resolution on a cease-fire in Syria envisaged in talks held in Vienna, Britain’s UN deputy ambassador said Monday.
“We are very clear that we are going to take action immediately now to draw up a Security Council resolution on the cease-fire,” said Peter Wilson, who did not give details on the content of the resolution and when it would be circulated.
The U.K. currently holds the monthly rotating presidency of the council.
Foreign ministers from nearly 20 countries agreed Saturday on a target date of Jan. 1 for formal peace talks to start between the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and opposition.
The countries pledged to support a Security Council resolution “to empower a UN-endorsed cease-fire monitoring mission in those parts of the country where monitors would not come under threat of attacks from terrorists,” said a joint statement.
The meeting — which involved U.S., Russia, Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia and other world powers — came a day after a series of terrorist attacks claimed by Daesh in Paris left at least 129 victims dead.
Regarding a separate UN resolution called by French President Francois Holllande against Daesh, Wilson said: “We stand ready to help France in whatever way France wants using our presidency of the Security Council to take action in a way that helps France and helps others who are the victims of these cowardly terrorist attacks.”
The Syrian civil war, now in its fifth year, has claimed more than 250,000 lives, according to UN figures, and made the country the world’s single-largest source of refugees and displaced people.
