Syria would re-gain its sovereignty when it achieves that no Western-trained terrorists seeking to topple the country’s legitimate government are present on its territory, Russian Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations Dmitriy Polyanskiy considered during a General Assembly debate on Thursday. 
 
"However, nothing is preventing Syrian sovereignty from being respected in this matter, nothing other than the unwillingness of Western countries to stop supporting international terrorists, whom they trained and equipped to oust the legitimate Syrian authorities," Polyanskiy stressed. 
 
The General Assembly debate was held to explain Russia's rationale for vetoing the Irish-Norwegian resolution on granting an extension for the cross-border mechanism for Syria at the UN Security Council. 
 
Explaining the use of a veto by UN Security Council permanent members is part of the new rules whereby they have to provide the rationale for their decisions to all members of the United Nations. 
 
The proposed resolution on Syria, drafted by humanitarian pen-holders Norway and Ireland, largely mirrored Russia’s proposal that had previously been voted down. 
 
The Western countries wanted to extend automatically the cross-border mechanism for 12 months, but Russia said it could only support a six-month extension.

UNSC extends Syria cross-border aid mechanism; US, France, UK abstain

On July 12, the UNSC extended the cross-border aid mechanism in Syria for six months in a compromise resolution that accommodated Russia's concerns regarding the issue.

The resolution passed with 12 member states out of 15 voting in favor, while three member states, the US, France, and the UK, abstained. The abstaining nations said they wanted a resolution that provided for an automatic extension of the mechanism after the first six months.

"The world is not limited to the Western countries or the so-called first golden billion as was imagined in Washington, London, and Paris," Polyanskiy said in the wake of the vote.

"It's time for you to get used to respecting the interests of other states first and foremost, just such states who are impacted directly by the Security Council decisions," he told the western states that abstained.