Russia still reluctant to blame Syria: report

ISTANBUL

Russian officials have expressed their opposition to a joint UN Security Council statement that portrays the Syrian regime as the responsible party in an incident that occurred Oct. 3, when stray shells from the Syrian side of the border struck the Turkish town of Akçakale, according to Russia's Voice radio.
 
Russia first warned all of the Security Council countries to take a "balanced" approach to the recent crisis at the Turkey-Syria border, and not to accept a "one-sided" joint statement, and continued to claim that the Security Council essentially used the unaltered content of a statement from Ankara in composing the joint statement.
 
The terms used in the statement, the Russian officials stated, tended to blame Syria for the Oct. 3 incident, and further criticized the statement for failing to mention Turkey's military response, in which Syrian targets were bombed.