The United States, Britain and France on Wednesday opposed a Russian-drafted UN Security Council statement that would have condemned an attack on Iran's embassy compound in Syria, in which a senior member of the Revolutionary Guards was eliminated and which Tehran has blamed on Israel, Reuters reported.
Press statements by the 15-member council have to be agreed by consensus. Diplomats said the US, backed by France and Britain, told council colleagues that many of the facts of what happened on Monday in Damascus remained unclear and there was no consensus among council members during a meeting on Tuesday.
"This serves as a clear illustration of the double standards employed by the Western 'troika' and their actual, rather than declarative, approach to legality and order in the international context," Russia's deputy UN Ambassador Dmitry Polyanskiy said, according to Reuters.
Israeli diplomatic and defense officials have not commented on the air strikes near the Iranian consulate in Damascus on Monday, but four Israeli officials acknowledged to The New York Times that Israel had carried out the attack.
According to the report, the strikes targeted a secret meeting in which Iranian intelligence officials and Palestinian Arab terrorists gathered to discuss the war in Gaza. Among them were leaders of the Islamic Jihad.
Iran on Tuesday vowed to respond to the strike in Damascus. Iran’s deputy UN ambassador Zahra Ershadi Israel of threatening regional and international peace and declared that “the United States is responsible for all crimes committed by the Israeli regime.”
She said Iran has exercised “considerable restraint” but Israel must now bear “full responsibility” for the consequences of the attack. Iran reserves its rights under international law and the UN Charter “to take decisive response to such reprehensible acts.”