UN head calls on world powers to take action on Syria

The United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Friday urged the international community, and primarily the large powers, to stand united in the face of human rights violations in Syria, dpa reported.

"I am deeply frustrated because the UN Security Council was not unanimous, and am deeply frustrated because of the violations of human rights in Syria which cannot be tolerated," Ban said in Zagreb, Croatia.

He called upon the nations sitting in the Security Council to assume responsibility and take action. Russia and China on Thursday vetoed a resolution threatening Syria with sanctions if it did not pull its army from major cities.

Ban pointed to what he called the UN and international community's failure 17 years ago to stop the Serb massacre of 8,000 Bosnian Muslims in Srebrenica. Such tragedies were not supposed to be allowed to happen again, he said.

Ban is in Croatia on the second leg of his tour through the seven countries that emerged from the former Yugoslavia. He visited Slovenia earlier Friday.


/Trend/