MOSCOW. Dec 23 (Interfax) - Moscow has taken note of the fact that the U.S. did not mention crimes committed by the Syrian opposition in its draft UN Security Council statement for the press regarding the bombing of the Syrian city of Aleppo, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement available on its website on Friday.
The Russian amendments to the document were not accepted, and the draft was eventually withdrawn from consideration, the ministry said. "The U.S. delegation submitted a draft Security Council statement for the press on the bombing of the Syrian city of Aleppo on December 18. It, in particular, expressed outrage over the Syrian government's air strikes, particularly the indiscriminate use of heavy weapons, including SCUD rockets," it said.
"The document did not say a word about the crimes committed by armed opposition units, including the use of civilians as a human shield to protect the communities seized by the opposition, attacks on medical institutions, infrastructure facilities, and so on," it said.
"We said on our part that the draft had been composed solely based on reports by the media and unnamed 'human rights activists', and the true circumstances of the incidents are far from being clear," it said.
"The Russian delegation proposed a number of constructive amendments to the text of the document with the aim of making it more balanced in nature. They were not accepted. In the end, the U.S. withdrew its draft from consideration at the UN Security Council," it said.