NEW YORK (UN). April 11 (Interfax) - Russia's draft resolution of the UN Security Council supporting the deployment of a mission of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) to Douma for investigating the alleged incident has failed to gain enough votes, an Interfax correspondent reported.
"The vote has the following outcome: five 'yes', four 'no', and six abstained. The draft fails to gain enough votes and does not pass," Peruvian Ambassador to the United Nations Gustavo Meza-Cuadra, who is presiding at the UN Security Council in April, said.
The Russian draft was opposed by the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and Poland. Russia, Kazakhstan, Bolivia, China, and Ethiopia voted for, the Interfax correspondent said.
Nine votes were necessary for adopting the resolution.
The Russian document "indicated that the Syrian government had invited an OPCW fact-finding mission to pay an immediate visit to the alleged incident scene" in the Syrian town of Douma, Russian Permanent Representative to the United Nations Vasily Nebenzya said before the vote.
The draft "hailed the decision of the OPCW Technical Secretariat's general director to send a mission to Syria for conducting an inquiry under Chemical Weapons Convention standards," he said.
The draft took into account the safe access guarantees given by the Syrian authorities and the Russian military, Nebenzya said.
"The UN secretary general would have presented the first report to the Security Council in 15 days," he said.
"This is a strictly applied, non-confrontational, and depoliticized initiative aimed at assisting the OPCW," Nebenzya said.