Russia, China fail to attend UNSC key members' meeting on Syria aid draft

Once again, Russia, joined this time by China, failed to attend a meeting of the Security Council's permanent members (P5) to discuss a Western-Arab draft resolution demanding immediate access to deliver aid to the needy all over Syria, diplomats said late Monday. The revised draft resolution, presented by Australia, Luxembourg and Jordan, on behalf of the Arab group, warns of sanctions on entities and individuals if they don't abide by the demand within 15 days of its adoption.Russia also failed to attend a similar meeting last Friday. The meeting was consequently cancelled.Justifying his failure to attend the meetings, Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin told reporters the draft "would not have any positive impact on the situation. If anything, it would create disruption of humanitarian efforts." He said the humanitarian operations are going well in Syria, referring to the hundreds of civilians who were evacuated from Homs during the last three days.He described the draft as a "political thing" meant to "to whip up political tensions around Syria. And this is not what we need now, especially in the context of Geneva II negotiations. This text is not going to be adopted, I can tell you." Russia has the veto power along with China, US, UK and France. They represent the Council's permanent members.UN Aid Chief Valerie Amos is scheduled to brief the Security Council on Thursday. Over nine million Syrians are affected by the three-year conflict. According to the Syrian opposition, over 130,000 people were killed since March 2011 when the crisis in Syria began.