UNITED NATIONS — Russia and the Trump administration clashed in a vote at the UN Security Council for the first time Tuesday as the Kremlin vetoed a measure backed by the Americans that would have punished Syria for using chemical weapons.
While the Russians had long signaled their intent to block the resolution, which was supported by dozens of countries, including the United States, the clash offered insights into the big divides that remain between the Kremlin and President Trump, who has vowed to improve ties.
The vote in the 15-member council was nine in favor and three against. Opponents included Russia and China, two of the five veto-wielding permanent members of the council, and Bolivia, a nonpermanent member. Three nonpermanent members — Egypt, Ethiopia, and Kazakhstan — abstained.
It was the Kremlin’s seventh Security Council veto in defense of President Bashar Assad of Syria over the war that has convulsed his country for nearly six years.
US ambassador Nikki R. Haley, who has called chemical weapons attacks in Syria “barbaric,’’ accused Russia and China of putting “their friends in the Assad regime ahead of our global security’’ in her blunt rebuke of the vetoes.
“It’s a sad day for the Security Council when members make excuses for other member states killing their own people,’’ she said in the council chambers.
The resolution, proposed by Britain and France months ago and endorsed by the United States last week, would have imposed sanctions on a handful of Syrian military officials and entities for having dropped chlorine-filled barrel bombs on opposition-held areas on at least three occasions in 2014 and 2015, according to a UN panel.
Russia’s envoy, Vladimir Safronkov, defended the veto, calling the resolution “politically biased’’ and asserting that Russia’s concerns about the draft language had not been addressed. “This is railroading the draft by the Western troika,’’ he said.
China’s ambassador, Liu Jieyi, recalling the now-discredited US warnings of Iraq’s “so-called’’ weapons of mass destruction in 2003, criticized the resolution as an example of “hypocrisy’’ by the Western powers. “It was forced through to a vote while council members still have differences,’’ he said. “This is in no way helpful to finding a solution.’’
Chlorine is banned as a weapon under an international treaty that Assad’s government signed in 2013.
The arguments and vote over the resolution were important because they provided insight into how Trump, who has made clear his intent to improve ties with Russia, would deal with the Kremlin over the Syria war. Russia is Assad’s most important ally.
The conflict over the resolution sharply contrasts a Russian-American consensus on the need to contain Syria’s use of chemical weapons. After a sarin gas attack on a suburb of Damascus in August 2013, Moscow and Washington struck a deal to force Assad to sign the chemical weapons treaty and dismantle his stockpile of the poisonous munitions under international supervision.
The Syrian government, though, violated the deal, according to a UN panel set up by the Security Council, known as the Joint Investigative Mechanism. It found that the government had used chemical weapons at least three times.
Russia helped to create the panel but questioned its findings when it implicated the Syrian government. The panel also found that Islamic State militants in Syria used mustard gas in August 2015.
Moscow made it clear last week that it would defeat the draft measure to impose sanctions on the Syrian government, calling it unbalanced. The veto signaled how far Russia was willing to go to shield its ally in Damascus.
President Vladimir Putin of Russia reinforced his opposition on Tuesday, adding that any Security Council penalties on the Syrian government would complicate diplomatic efforts underway in Geneva aimed at halting the war.
“As for sanctions against the Syrian leadership, I think the move is totally inappropriate now,’’ he told a news conference while visiting Kyrgyzstan. “It does not help, would not help the negotiation process. It would only hurt or undermine confidence during the process.’’
Human Rights Watch concluded in a recent report that the Syrian military had not only violated its promises not to use chemical weapons but had systematically dropped chlorine bombs in the final weeks of the battle to take the city of Aleppo last fall.
Trump repeatedly has expressed admiration for Putin and said he wanted to strike a deal with him to stop the war in Syria and focus on fighting terrorism. But disagreements within Trump’s administration appear to have complicated that goal.
Haley has taken a hard line against Russia. She condemned what she called Russia’s “aggressive actions’’ in eastern Ukraine, vowed to maintain sanctions related to Russia’s annexation of Crimea, and in her Senate confirmation hearing, went as far as saying that Russia was guilty of war crimes in Syria.
Her comments on Russia, often directly contradicting her boss, echo the talking points of the previous administration of Barack Obama, but they also reflect concerns of Republicans in Congress, who distrust the Kremlin.
Haley was in Washington on Monday for meetings at the White House. A former governor of South Carolina, she has so far kept her comments limited to a handful of foreign policy issues that deliver political dividends at home, including a tough line on Russia and Iran.
