Russia on Monday said an international peacekeeping mission to Syria required the approval from Damascus and an end to the ongoing violence.
"The host country has first to approve a peacekeeping mission," Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said, adding that "a peacekeeping mission should first have peace that it will then keep." He also said Moscow was waiting for explanation for the Arab League's initiative, the RIA Novosti news agency reported.
Further Ostracizing beleaguered President Bashar al-Assad in the Arab world, the Arab League on Sunday had agreed to back the Syrian Opposition and decided to send a joint U.N.-Arab peacekeeping mission to the strife-torn country.
Arab Foreign Ministers who met at the League headquarters in the Egyptian capital Cairo also announced the end of its earlier mission to that Middle East country as it failed to end the raging violence there.
Russia and China had vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution on Syria that calls on Assad to step down. Thirteen of the Council's 15 members voted in favor of the resolution to help stop the violence in Syria.
The West has been trying to persuade Moscow to support a resolution effectively authorizing a "military operation" but Russia has repeatedly insisted that the Western drive for a "stronger crackdown" on Syria is preparation for a "Libyan scenario," the news agency said.
Russia, one of Assad's firm supporters during the uprising against his regime, has proposed its own draft, which the West criticized as being too soft.
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June 12, 2026 17:14 ET Major central bank action was the focus this week in economic news. The European Central Bank became the first major central bank to move in response to the rising inflationary pressures in the backdrop of the conflict in the Middle East. In North America, the U.S. inflation and trade data as well as Canada’s central bank decision gained attention. The Chinese trade data was the main news in Asia.