UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – Russia and China vetoed yesterday a UN resolution that backed an Arab plan calling on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to quit, stalling global efforts to end his bloody crackdown on unrest after hundreds were reported killed in the city of Homs.

UN – Members of the UN Security Council vote on the draft resolution yesterday. (Reuters)

The high-level diplomatic setback came after world leaders and Syrian opposition activists accused Assad’s forces of a massacre in a sustained shelling of Homs, the bloodiest episode in 11 months of upheaval in the pivotal Arab country.

Russia and China joined in a double veto of a Western- and Arab-driven resolution at the UN Security Council endorsing the Arab League plan for Assad to hand power to a deputy to make way for a transition towards democracy.

The other 13 council members voted for the resolution that would have said the council “fully supports” the League plan aimed at stopping Syria’s bloodshed, whose sectarian overtones threaten stability in the wider Middle East region.

Russia complained that the draft resolution was an improper and biased attempt at “regime change” in Syria, which is Moscow’s sole major Middle East ally, an important buyer of Russian arms exports and host to a Russian naval base.

With an eye to events in Homs, US Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice dispensed with the usual diplomatic courtesies and declared she was “disgusted” by the Russian-Chinese veto, adding that “any further bloodshed that flows will be on their hands”.

Shortly before the Security Council voted, US President Barack Obama denounced the “unspeakable assault” on Homs, demanded that Assad leave power immediately and called for UN action against Assad’s “relentless brutality”.

“Any government that brutalizes and massacres its people does not deserve to govern,” Obama said.

He and other Western and Arab leaders exerted unprecedented pressure  on Russia to allow the Security Council to pass the Arab League-backed resolution that calls for Assad to relinquish his autocratic powers and end the violence. The UN says over 5,000 civilians have been killed.

Second veto in four months

But Russia, and China following Moscow’s lead, weighed in to torpedo UN action on Syria for the second time in four months. In October, they vetoed a European-drafted resolution condemning Syria and threatening it with possible sanctions.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said it had not been possible to work constructively with Russia ahead of the vote, even though military intervention in Syria – fiercely opposed by Moscow – had been absolutely ruled out.

“I thought that there might be some ways to bridge, even at this last moment, a few of the concerns that the Russians had. I offered to work in a constructive manner to do so. That has not been possible,” she told reporters at a Munich conference.

Clinton warned that the risk of more bloodshed and civil war in Syria had risen after the collapse of the UN resolution.