Obama Kills Putin’s Efforts for UNSC Anti-Terror Agreement

On Sept. 23, in an article, “U.S. Stonewalls Putin’s Anti-Terror Push at the United Nations,” Foreign Policy pointed out that the Obama administration has killed a Russian proposal seeking “agreement on a UN Security Council statement promoting a broad-based counter-terrorism fight.”  This occurred a week before Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visit to the UNGA.  “One of the major concerns about the Russian-backed UN statement, according to Western diplomats speaking to Foreign Policy, was that Putin would use it as ammunition in his widely anticipated speech before the General Assembly on Sept. 28,” the article said.

The Foreign Policy article noted that the U.S. rejection followed weeks of closed-door negotiations involving the United States, Russia, China, Britain, and France, the five permanent members of the UN Security Council. The article said:

The article also pointed out that the Russian diplomats have spent the past month trying to put together a statement for the Security Council that would make clear that “Moscow’s jets, airbases, and drones [are] in Syria as part of a well-intentioned plan to bring stability to a strife-torn region and push back against the Islamic State.”  It also said that Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov plans to convene a high-level meeting of the UN Security Council on Sept. 30.