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Summary The General Assembly vote was 133 in support of resolution and 12 against, with 31 abstaining.
The UN General Assembly overwhelmingly denounced Syrias crackdown on dissent Friday in a symbolic effort meant to push the deadlocked Security Council and the world at large into action on stopping the countrys civil war.Before the vote, Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon reminded the Assembly of the fresh violence in the city of Aleppo and drew comparisons between the failure to act in Syria with the international communitys failure to protect people from past genocide in Srebrenica, Bosnia, and Rwanda.The conflict in Syria is a test of everything this organization stands for, Ban said. I do not want todays United Nations to fail that test.The vote came after the more powerful Security Council was stopped by a series of Russian and Chinese vetoes on resolutions that would have opened the door to sanctions on Syria.The General Assembly vote was 133 in support of the resolution and 12 against, with 31 abstaining. Syrias ambassador angrily called the vote a piece of theater.Though General Assembly resolutions are unenforceable, a strong vote can carry moral weight.Even so, the resolutions Arab sponsors this week weakened two key provisions a demand that President Bashar Assad resign and a call for other nations to place sanctions on Syria.Russia and China had objected to those provisions. Both voted no Friday, along with Syria, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Belarus, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Myanmar, Zimbabwe and Venezuela.The revised resolution takes a swipe at Russia and China by deploring the Security Council failure to act.
