UNITED NATIONS, Aug. 19 (UPI) -- Violating the sovereignty of Syria at the U.N. Security Council is a red line that shouldn't be crossed, the Syrian ambassador to the United Nations said.
World leaders denounced Syrian President Bashar Assad for the brutal crackdown on anti-government demonstrators in his country. U.N. human rights officials had said some of the atrocities committed at the hands of the Assad regime may constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Bashar al-Jafari, the Syrian ambasador to the United Nations, scolded members of the Security Council by saying "violating the sovereignty of Syria is a red line," the official Syrian Arab News Agency reports.
He pointed to the British response to London riots as a sign member states were hypocritical in their condemnation of the Syrian crackdown.
The death toll from the Syrian uprising has topped 2,000, the latest estimates by the United Nations indicated. Though hundreds were arrested during rioting in London, the Syrian death toll exceeds that in London by a significant margin.
Nevertheless, the Security Council hasn't issued a resolution condemning Syria for the bloodshed. Opponents worry about another protracted engagement like the one in Libya, though Western leaders have said military action is "not the preferred course" of action in Syria, a spokeswoman for the U.S. State Department said.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met with Syrian opposition and human rights leaders in July though much of the international condemnation added the caveat that any transition in Syria should be charted with little foreign intervention.
