U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Friday spoke by telephone with her Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov on the stalled UN draft resolution on Syria, in an apparent effort to garner support from Russia which opposes any resolution suggesting a regime change in the Arab state, Xinhua reported.
In a regular briefing, State Department spokesman Mark Toner said Clinton made the call during her flight to Munich for the annual security conference there, and the two chief diplomats agreed that "their teams in New York would continue to consult on this draft resolution."
"We want to see the Security Council speak in a unified and strong fashion in support of the Syrian people, but also to the Syrian government that the violence needs to end and a political transition needs to take place," he said.
But Toner declined to say whether Clinton has secured Russia's support for a watered-down UN Security Council resolution on Syria.
In the latest development, the UN Security Council is scheduled on Saturday morning to meet in an open session on the current situation in Syria, the UN Spokesperson's Office announced on Friday.
Diplomats said that a revised Arab-European draft resolution on Syria will be put to vote when the council meets on Saturday.
But reports from Moscow indicated that Russia is not yet satisfied. Interfax news agency quoted Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov as saying that the revised draft was "not enough for us to be able to support it in this form."
Russia has warned some countries against meddling in the internal affairs of Syria out of its concerns that the draft resolution contains what is seen to promote "regime change" in the Middle East country.