NEW YORK, October 31 (RIA Novosti) - Russia's considers that the co-sponsors of a draft UN resolution on Syria are mixing legal, procedural issues with international relations, thereby interfering with the UN Security Council's work, the Russian foreign minister said Monday morning.
Sergei Lavrov told a news conference in New York that this was incorrect and said Moscow was concerned about the matter.
"We discussed the issue today with [our] colleagues within the UN Security Council," Lavrov said, before adding that the co-sponsors would take Russia's standpoint into account.
In October, an international commission chaired by Detlev Mehlis delivered a report to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and members of the Security Council suggesting that high-ranking Syrian and Lebanese officials had been involved in the February 14 killing of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. Syria said the report was politically motivated and inaccurate.
Following the report, the United States, France and Britain put forward October 26 a draft UN Security Council resolution claiming to launch an investigation into the involvement of high-ranking officials from Syrian law enforcement agencies in Hariri's killing.
