By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, July 11, updated -- As Ambassadors filed into the UN Security Council to hear envoy Kofi Annan's briefing about Syria late Wednesday morning, it was the draft resolution Russia circulated on Tuesday that drove the questioning.
Inner City Press asked French Permanent Representative Gerard Araud, "Any views of the Russian draft?"
Araud said, "No, no views." It is expected that France and others will counter-circulate their own draft, which unlike the Russians' will be under UN Charter Chapter 7.
UK Permanent Representative Mark Lyall Grant said it made no sense to talk yet about rolling over the mandate until Annan's briefs the Council on the "wider plan."
China's Permanent Representative Li Baodong, on the other hand, said "We will support the rollover" of the mandate of the mission, UNSMIS.
Inner City Press asked Russia's Deputy Permanent Representative Sasha Pankin if there had been any direct responses to his country's draft. Mostly what you got, he replied, referring to US Ambassador Susan Rice's exclusive quote to Inner City Press on Tuesday, that the Russian draft is "insufficient."
Pankin noted that his name is NOT "Igor," as he was identified citing AFP on a site overseen by the US Broadcasting Board of Governors, which also overseesVoice of America....
