UN, UK delay votes on Syria action

The United Nations Security Council ended its Wednesday meeting without voting on a resolution permitting the use of force to punish Syria for its alleged use of chemical weapons on its own population, and the British Parliament delayed a vote on military intervention, with members of both the ruling Conservative Party and opposition Labor Party stating their wishes to wait until U.N. inspectors -- still in Syria -- have filed a report.

China's foreign minister urged restraint with regard to any military action aimed at Syria Wednesday night amid growing tensions over the country's alleged used of chemical weapons, saying any military intervention in the crisis would only worsen turmoil in the Middle East. 

While Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said military action would not help the situation, he also repeated that China opposed anyone using chemical weapons. 

"A political resolution has, from the very beginning, been the only way out for the Syrian issue," Wang said in a statement on the ministry's website. 

The comments came hours after President Barack Obama said the U.S. had concluded that the Syrian government, led by President Bashar al-Assad had carried out a deadly chemical weapons attack last week that left hundreds dead. 

Wang, meanwhile, said that there should be no rush to prejudge the findings of the U.N. team currently in Syria to investigate the chemical weapons claims, of which Russia, Syria's ally, says there is no proof.

But Kurt Volker, a former U.S. ambassador to NATO, said that all signs point to the Syrian governent being behind the attack. 

"The scale of the usage, the ability to access the weapons, the ability to deploy on that kind of scale, the fact they were used against an area controlled by the opposition which was under attack by the government -- all of this points to a usage by the government," Volker told Al Jazeera's John Seigenthaler. "You can't know 100 percent unless you actually know 100 percent, but you do have to be able to make reasonable judgments along the way." 

Britain pushed the other four veto-holding members of the U.N. Security Council to authorize military action against Assad to protect Syrian civilians -- a move certain to be blocked by Russia and, probably, China.

Moscow and Beijing have both vetoed previous Western efforts to impose U.N. penalties on Assad, although China has been keen to show it is not taking sides and has urged the Syrian government to talk to the opposition. It has also said a transitional government should be formed. 

The United States and its allies say a U.N. veto would not stop them. But Volker said the Obama administration along with the British and French governments were not talking about intervening directly in Syria's conflict, rather he said they wanted to "send a signal of detterance against the future use of chemical weapons." 

"I would argue that's a shame," Volker said. "I think it's a lack of strategy and a lack of planning for what happens next, but it is a legitimate point to say that the use of chemical weapons is illegal under international law, it's an abomination, and when they are used there ought to be some response, and if the U.N. Security Council refuses to step up to the plate to respond in that situation, then there are other reasons under international law why one should consider that." 

But despite the U.S. administration's assertions that it would press forward without the U.N., momentum for international military action appeared to slow.

British Prime Minister David Cameron promised British lawmakers he would not go to war until a U.N. chemical weapons team on the ground in Syria has a chance to report its findings, pushing the U.K.'s involvement in any potential strike until next week at the earliest. Cameron called an emergency meeting of Parliament on Thursday to vote on whether to endorse international action against Syria.

Even so, British Foreign Secretary William Hague suggested that U.S. military action need not be constrained by Britain. "The United States are able to make their own decisions," he told reporters late Wednesday, just after speaking with Secretary of State John Kerry.

Meanwhile, French General Vincent Desportes, former director of the Ecole de Guerre military training academy, told AFP any strikes would be "more symbolic than military."