UN Security Council fails to agree on joint Syria declaration - France 24

The UN Security Council on Tuesday failed to agree on a joint declaration on war-torn Syria, capping a day of negotiations in which the organization's special envoy to the country called to jump-start the deadlocked peace process.

Russia, Syria's main ally, repeatedly blocked negotiations on the matter, diplomats said, although Moscow did not respond to a request for comment as to why.

The conflict in Syria, which broke out after the brutal suppression of anti-government protests in 2011, has killed more than 380,000 people and displaced millions.

Endless rounds of UN-backed peace talks in the decade since have failed to stem the bloodshed and in recent years have been largely overtaken by parallel negotiations led by Russia and Turkey.

"The current divisions in the international community need to be bridged," Geir Pedersen, the UN special envoy for Syria, told journalists earlier in the day following a Security Council videoconference.

Pedersen said that without "constructive international diplomacy" on Syria, it was unlikely that "any track -- constitutional track or any other -- will really move forward."

Diplomats said the failure to agree a declaration was due to Russia, which had made demands unacceptable to Western nations.